


Who Saves the Hero (AU Version) - Introduction, Background Documentation and Artwork

by Kudara



Series: Who Saves the Hero - (AU Version) [1]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Culture, Alternate History, Alternate Universe, Other, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-01-07 21:22:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 22,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12240852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kudara/pseuds/Kudara
Summary: Consider this a draft RFC (request for comments)Completed Sections: Introduction, TimelineLooking for Input: Asari, Batarian, Human, Quarian and Turian Codex ChangesStill to be completed: Salarian Codex, Prothean Codex, Illium, Omega, Terminus Systems, Eclipse PMC, Blue Suns PMCCompletely NEW: Warlord Aria T'Loak by LuckyFK





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Who Saves the Hero? (Original Work)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/99990) by [Kudara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kudara/pseuds/Kudara). 
  * Inspired by [Of Sheep and Battle Chickens](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/326994) by LogicalPremise. 
  * Inspired by [A season of sorrows unending - the Cerberus Files: Citadel Races](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/326997) by LogicalPremise. 
  * Inspired by [A Thessian's Whisper](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/327000) by PMC65. 
  * Inspired by [The Encyclopedia Biotica](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/327003) by LogicalPremise. 
  * Inspired by [LuckyFK Asari Collection - Artistic Nudes Included - Not Safe For Work!](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/327855) by LuckyFK. 
  * Inspired by [Euderion Asari Ship Collection](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/327864) by Euderion. 
  * Inspired by [Stones Thrown Before the Tide](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5446856) by [MizDirected](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MizDirected/pseuds/MizDirected). 
  * Inspired by [Another Realm Series](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/341109) by Katkiller-V. 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introduction to Who Saves the Hero (V2) explaining my reasoning for the rewrite and introducing the non-canon ME universe it will be set in.  
> This should be the final version of the Introduction, let me know if you see any errors in it please.

I’m certain that it’s no surprise that Mass Effect 3 drained my enthusiasm for writing in the canon universe - though my reason’s may differ a bit from everyone else’s. Personally, for me by the end of Mass Effect 3 the Mass Effect universe to me had lost much of what made the Mass Effect universe so great at the beginning of the trilogy. Mass Effect: Incursion (comics) and the Mass Effect: Revelations (book) introduced a galaxy that was populated, and I quote from the book, ‘with trillions of people spread across thousands of worlds’. Into this Humanity was introduced, a vastly small race compared to the others, behind in their technological curve, and desperately trying to prove their relevance on the galactic stage against much larger and stronger players.

By the beginning of Mass Effect 3 Humanity was vastly over-powered for their base population size and relative economic strength; aliens had generally become too human-like and retconned down in strength and abilities so Humanity could appear on par with them; and the necessity of paring down decision making consequences into a easily understood storyline for the game, which didn’t start with eight or more possible beginnings and only branch out more from there, meant that your previous decisions seemed to made no difference on the game’s outcome. In short, ME3 left me disgusted with the end state of the ME universe, and I lost the desire to write this story for a long time, uncertain where to take it or how to change it so that I was satisfied with the resulting story.

Fortunately, I’ve received some inspiration on that front thanks in no small part to LogicalPremise’s Of Sheep and Battle Chickens (OSBC) storyline which unabashedly departs from canon to forge its own alternate universe and storyline that, though much darker, is at the same time more satisfying and makes more inherent (and internally coherent) sense than the original. It’s very important to me that stories make sense within their own universe, whether or not that universe is even practical - the story should make coherent sense within the rules you have created for it (just look at Pratchet’s Diskworld on the back of a turtle). Because of this, in this re-write I’m pretty much tearing up the canon timeline and making up my own. The galaxies going to be a lot more settled and developed by the time Humanity arrives on the stage in 10,000 CE vs 2000 CE.

The basic setting of the universe, with the exception of the changes the increased galactic population will have on it, will remain as it was presented in Revelations and Mass Effect 1. The Asari will be the diplomatic and economic powerhouse with cutting edge technology; the Turians, underpinned by their meritocracy and Volus financial wizardry, will be the race entrusted by the Council to secure the borders of Citadel space; and the Salarians will be the scientific research and espionage specialists. Humanity will not end up effectively singing “Anything you can do I can do better,” which I swear I heard in my mind continually during ME3, but will remain the underdog jack-of-all-trades race with exceptional adaptability - as they are traditionally represented in role playing games. This is especially important as this is what makes Humanities success shine all the brighter, not by pulling the other races down, but succeeding despite the differences and vast power imbalances.

Major differences between canon and this alternate universe pull a lot of inspiration from LogicalPremise’s universe: The Asari, with their 15,000-year advance in colonization will be by far the powerhouse of Citadel Space with the largest territory, population, number of worlds, economy, and the strongest naval and ground force military. The Turians who have been spacefaring for 20,000 years in this universe vs 15,000 in canon are actually second in size, population, economy (with the assistance of the Volus), and military forces. The Salarians are next in population, economy and military might followed by the Batarians, something which actually explains why the big three didn’t want to really go to war with them if there were alternatives. By the time the Systems Alliance shows up trying to sing “We will Rock You,” with our mere 15 billion population, Citadel Space will indeed have trillions of people spread across thousands of worlds who will not really be very impressed by our theatrics. Fortunately for Humanity however, my universe, though taking certain ideas about several races from the OSBC universe, isn’t going to be nearly as dark as that of LogicalPremise’s and they won’t be immediately squashed for it.

The Asari in this universe, though as powerful, are not as dark as in LogicalPremise’s, but they still have their machinations going as they strive to maintain power over the Turians, Salarians and Batarians. The Asari reasons for this are actually good ones as they very well know that if the Turians gained too much power they would immediately try and take over all Citadel space, convinced their bringing of order would be best for everyone. The Salarians, if they felt too threatened, would unleash the various bio-plagues they have developed against all the other races; and the Batarians if they gained too much military might, would step up their raiding and try to enslave everyone. The Asari in this universe see their role as maintaining enough power to ensure that everyone else is wary enough of them to make the effort to get along and not try to conquer, kill, or enslave everyone else. Are the Asari the good guys here? Sometimes? In this universe they certainly weren’t willing to step in and save the Drell or Quarians and have let the Turians greet several new races at gunpoint and forcibly make them client races of the Hierarchy, but at the very least they aren’t interested in the above-mentioned conquest, genocide and enslavement. Perhaps what can be said of the Asari is that while they put the needs of their own race above everyone else, the status quo they strive to maintain is the one that actually allows the different races to keep a measure of independence from one another and provides the framework of laws that support individual freedoms.

Other sources of inspiration are in no particular order: PMC65’s "A Thessian's Whisper" and "Shepardess and the Questing Beast" where she does an excellent job of fleshing out Asari culture. LogicalPremise (again) for his "Encyclopedia Biotica" and "The Cerberus Files", and especially for making them public use for other authors. I’ll be using biotic abilities and items, such as the warp sword, from "Encyclopedia Biotica" in the story as well as pulling ideas about the races from "The Cerberus Files". MizDirected’s stories are rather like PMC65’s except she does a wonderful job of building out Turian society and culture. She has also permitted authors to use the terminology she’s developed for her stories in their works, like the excellent ‘nais’ as an asari unique noun to use where one would normally use woman or man  in a sentence. Moving onto inspirational artwork, I'd like to thank LuckyFK from DeviantArt and his Commando Saris series of drawings. His drawings in general are inspiration for asari of all fitness levels, sizes and personalities. Finally, I’d like to thank Euderion, also from DeviantArt, for letting me use his Asari Navy ship drawings, classifications, and names in this work for the Asari Republic’s Naval ships. Finally, I need to mention my own Asari Empireverse stories as I will be re-using some of the background information I’ve developed for that story in this re-write. Part of the timeline will make an appearance as will some terminology and background information on the Asari.

 

****Documentation** **

Timeline - Re-worked Timeline unique to the story

Codex Changes - Will include any relevant Codex changes for each race

Culture and Terminology Pages - Guide for any unique (or borrowed) words I’m going to use in this universe as well as any relevant (made up) cultural information.

 

****Introduction Addendum: Working the Numbers** **

Now trillions of people on thousands of worlds sounds nice, but let’s do some math to figure out how many garden worlds would support that type of population. If we suppose the following:

Total Galactic Population: 3.5 Trillion or 3500 Billion

Citadel Space Total Population 2.5 Trillion or 2500 Billion

There is a five to one ratio of worlds meaning 5 non-garden worlds/moons/big asteroids/space stations(like Omega) with mining or research outposts to every 1 garden world. These will have an average population of 10,000 to a garden world’s population of 2-6 billion - which is so small of a percentage that we can pretty much ignore it when figuring out how many garden worlds will be needed to support 3.5 Trillion people.

Therefore:

Galactic Inhabited Garden Worlds: app. 1200 with approximately 834 in Citadel space (supposing an average pop of 3 billion per garden world)

Citadel Worlds: app 4200 worlds with some degree of inhabitation (5 inhabited planets/moons/asteroids/space stations per garden world) or nearly 5000 worlds total in Citadel space, thus justifying the Council’s statement that their decrees affect trillions of people - something that hardly seemed true in canon where you would have been hard pressed to scrape up 250 billion citizens.

**Galactic Population Breakdown:**

**Species**

| 

**Total Galactic**

**Population**

| 

**Percentage Total**

**Galactic Population**

| 

**Total Garden Worlds/**

**Citadel Garden Worlds**  
  
---|---|---|---  
  
**Asari**

| 

1750 billion

| 

50% TGP

| 

585 TGW/445 CGW  
  
**Turians**

| 

775 billion

| 

22% TGP

| 

260 TGW/185 CGW  
  
**Salarians**

| 

595 billion

| 

17% TGP

| 

195 TGW/140 CGW  
  
**Batarians**

| 

250 billion

| 

7.1% TGP

| 

87 TGW/0 CGW  
  
**Vorcha**

| 

Est 100 billion

| 

2.8% TGP

| 

15 TGW/0 CGW  
  
**Volus**

| 

65 billion

| 

1.8% TGP

| 

21 TGW/15 CGW  
  
**Elcor**

| 

20 billion

| 

0.6% TGP

| 

7 TGW/5 CGW  
  
**Hanar**

| 

17 billion

| 

0.5% TGP

| 

6 TGW/3 CGW  
  
**Humans**

| 

15 billion

| 

0.4% TGP

| 

24 TGW/12 CGW  
  
**Krogan**

| 

3.5 billion

| 

0.1% TGP

| 

3 TGW/1 CGW  
  
**Quarians**

| 

15 million

| 

0.0004% TGP

|    
  
**Drell**

| 

Est 1 million

| 

0.00003% TGP

|    
  
 

 


	2. Timeline for Who Saves the Hero (Version 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate Timeline for the Alternate Universe setting of Who Saves the Hero (V2)  
> This should be the final version of the timeline.

Inspiration for this timeline is taken both from my writings for the Asari Republics on the MEU collaborative writing forums and my Asari Empireverse timeline.  
  
This is a vastly modified timeline for this Alternate Universe please pay attention to the author’s notes throughout that explain the differences between this timeline and the one of the canon universe.  
  
Remember I mentioned in the intro that a fictional universe should try and make sense in itself?  The canon timeline presents the very first inconsistency in the Mass Effect storyline.  Canon claims that the Asari progressed faster than anyone else because of the beacon - yet looking at the timeline and comparing every other race to the Asari shows that they took at around 35,000 years longer than anyone else to progress from middle stone age equivalency to spaceflight…I’m going to try and fix this by both having the Asari discover space flight earlier and be alone in the galaxy for about 18000 years, and moving the First Contact War to 8000 years later.

* * *

  
  
**Pre-Prothean Times (1,000,000,000 BCE - 60,000 BCE)**  
  
67000-56000 BCE     The eruption of a super volcano on Earth, in what is now Indonesia and leaves a massive crater which later become Lake Toba and propels several tons of particulate matter into the atmosphere.  The resulting volcanic winter almost completely wipes out the primitive hominid population of the planet, and later genetic studies by Humanity reveals that only 2000 or so hominoids remained after the cataclysmic event.  
  
_Author’s Note: This is an actual event, far from having the most varied genetic variance Humanity should actually have the least out of all sentient races in the Mass Effect Universe.  What does (at least in this story) make Humanity biologically distinct however is our epigenetics; inheritable changes to genetic expression which allow Humans (and all Earth mammals) the ability to ‘fake’ genetic variance and appear to adapt far more quickly than straightforward genetics would normally allow._  
  
  
**Pre-Council Times (60,000 BCE - 620 BCE)**  
  
  
60000 BCE    The Protheans achieve spaceflight and discover mass effect technology from the ruins of the extinct Inusannon. They go on to establish a galaxy-wide civilization linked by the mass relay network with the Citadel as their capital.  
  
  
40000 BCE    Reapers arrive though the Citadel Relay and begin attacking the Prothean Empire.  
  
_Author’s Note: Yes there is an 8000 year difference here, events have been moved around so that the Council is formed 8000 years earlier._  
  
  
39900 BCE    Approximately a century after the initial attack, the Protheans begin to examine the possibility of uplifting very primitive species such as the Turians, Asari and Humans.   The decision is made to move forward with the uplift of the Asari even though they are very primitive.  The Asari at this stage of their development are just beginning the Earth equivalent of their Late Paleolithic Age (approximately 30,000 years ago) with their population centered in a predictable dispersal pattern around what will become known as the Ceripian Ocean.  
   
 The Asari’s relatively small population and limited geographical dispersion allows the uplift team to use modified scouting probes to disperse a genetically engineered virus which inserts genetic code into the Asari genome so that all Asari will be biotics in the future.  One side effect of this genetic change is the introduction of an increased risk of undesirable mutations such as the Ardak-Yakshi into the population.  Meanwhile the uplift team begins teaching one tribe of Asari the foundations of writing and mathematics alongside more practical skills such as metalworking, navigation, and the basics of astronomy lifting those they are teaching from the equivalent of the early Stone Age into the early Bronze Age.  
  
  
39800 BCE    After a just over a century of effort it becomes apparent that the uplift of the Asari will not be completed before the Reapers finish their extermination of the Prothean Empire. The decision is made for the uplift team to leave Thessia, but not before building an hidden underground archive to assist the Protheans put into deep sleep in finishing the uplift of the Asari.  To ensure that the Asari cannot activate the beacon should they discover it before the Protheans return, the uplift team secures the beacon to prevent unauthorized access from anyone not Prothean and powers it down before leaving.  
  
_Author’s Note:  Plenty of people seem to want to accuse the Asari of hiding the Reaper’s existence because the revelation of the beacon on Thessia meant they were aware of why the Protheans disappeared, but that makes no sense at all.  Why would any race blithely accept their own extinction and make absolutely no effort to prevent it (and indeed actively work against the prevention of it)?  It makes much more sense to assume the Prothean Empire’s government could not accept that they would be defeated and made no attempt at all to warn the ‘primitives’ of what might happen to them if they should fall.  The Ilos after the fact beacon message doesn’t count against this theory as that message was sent well after the Prothean government not only failed, but it became clear that that plan for the sleepers to re-build the Empire had also failed.  I firmly believe the first appearance of the Vendetta VI was when Shepard or Javik’s mind touched the beacon and the security programming activated only because it recognized a Prothean mind print.  The Codex entry for the VI also supports this supposition.  In any case, the finger could equally be pointed at Humanity (interestingly something I notice few writers consider) if the SA had allowed expert alien researchers in before Liara, then perhaps the blueprints for the anti-Reaper weapon, and reasons for it could have been found much earlier.  After all, Humanity had a full Prothean archive available for research that they not only kept to themselves but barely funded the research effort vs. merely a beacon._  
  
  
39,000 BCE     With the departure of the prothean uplift team, technological progress among the followers of the Goddess, Athame, and her Guides, Lucen and Janiri, stagnates as the few hundred uplifted asari have little time to devote to learning and teaching with the demands of simple survival.  Outside of their tribal area the rest of the Asari still exist as primitive Stone Age tribes.  
  
  
34,000 BCE    The descendants of the followers of the Goddess Athame are now numerous enough that their encampment has developed from a loose collection of family dwellings into a sprawling city.  The inhabitants will eventually name Thessia’s first city Serrice.  
  
  
33,000 BCE    The descendants of Pania, beloved musician of Athame, found the city of Armali and take the Lineage name of T’Soni.  
  
_Author’s Note: In the canon timeline, even though the Asari are supposedly uplifted by the Protheans from the stone to the bronze age, they take an astonishing 35,000 years or so longer than any other race to manage to get from the bronze age to the technological age._  
  
_Canon Asari: First Civilization to FTL Spaceflight - approximately 48,000 BCE to 580 BCE_  
_Canon Turians: First Civilization to FTL Spaceflight - 13,000 BCE to (prior to) 500 BCE (start of the Turian Unification War)_  
_Canon Humans: First Civilization to FTL Spaceflight - 10,000 BCE to 2148 CE_  
  
_Talk about an uplift fail…_  
  
  
26524 BCE    The League of Republics is formed by the individual republics upon Thessia, which eventually becomes the Asari Republics.  
  
  
22183 BCE    The Asari make their first spaceflight.  
  
_Author’s Note: Notice that the Asari are not taking nearly 35,000 years longer than anyone else to develop spaceflight, but the normal 10,000 to 12,000 years post first civilization.  I am however pushing back the discovery of the beacon until after this spaceflight so I can justify them actually taking that amount of time instead of less._  
  
  
21878 BCE    During a routine equipment upgrade an asari intelligence signal team unexpectedly detects a localized Prothean signal emanating from below the Temple of Athame in Serrice.  This leads to the discovery of the hidden Prothean underground bunker containing the beacon left by the Prothean uplift team.  The discovery is immediately classified at the highest level, and a research team gathered to examine it.  
  
  
21689 BCE    The asari research team studying the beacon has their first breakthrough, finally activating the device and recovering the last message sent to it which was an ominous sounding warning to the Prothean uplift team to deactivate the Parnthia mass relay after they traveled though it as an added level of protection against ‘the Enemy’.  
  
  
21000 BCE    On Palven, the Turians begin to develop their first civilization.  
  
_Author’s Note: The Turians are also being moved forward 8000 years, this will help justify their 25% total galactic population._  
  
  
20358 BCE     Asari develop FTL capability.  The League of Republic’s Council of Matriarchs, an elected body of the twenty-two well-respected Matriarchs (one representative from each of the Republics on Thessia) which acts as a governing body overseeing the daily operations of the Republics government and make decisions during times of emergency, takes the unusual step of cautioning the populace against activating the newly discovered mass relay in their system and instead encourages the development of all garden worlds that can be reached by the newly discovered FTL drive.  The Council’s wisdom is accepted by the plebiscite, and exploration focuses on the four stellar systems which can be reached by FTL from Thessia instead of immediately activating the mass relay and beginning an exploration of the relay system.  In the decades following, a mass exodus takes place as asari from all walks of life leave overcrowded Thessia for the new colonies.  
  
  
17358 BCE     After three millennium of extensive development Lusia, Sanves and Nical are thriving colony worlds, relieving the population pressure on Thessia.  The total number of Asari in the rapidly growing Asari Republics numbers around 20 billion.  The Asari finally activate the Parnthia System mass effect relay and begin cautiously exploring the galaxy.  
  
  
12580 BCE    After nearly 5000 years of cautious exploration and steady colonization of nearly every discovered garden world, the Asari discover the huge Citadel space station at a hub of many mass relays. The area claimed by the Republic has expanded rapidly, now encompassing 42 garden worlds as well as over 200 outposts on various planetoids for mining and research.  The Republics population is estimated at over 140 billion asari.

 

12200 BCE    On Sur’Kesh the Salarians begin to develop their first civilization.  
  
  
8000 BCE    The Turians develop spaceflight.  
  
  
5000 BCE    The Last Quaternary Extinction Event occurs on Earth, this is the last of four Ice Age climate change extinction events.  
  
  
2456 BCE    The Salarians discover spaceflight.  
  
  
2233-2042 BCE     The Turian Unification War occurs. The increasingly isolated and xenophobic colonies on the frontiers of Turian space go to war with each other. After over a century of conflict, the Turian Hierarchy sweeps in and pacifies the remaining factions. Animosity between Turian colonies lingers long afterward due to the number of casualties.  It is estimated that during this timeframe the Turian colonies lost approximately one third of their adult population and suffered trillions of dollars in infrastructure loss due to bombings.  
  
  
1900 BCE    Tuchanka, the Krogan homeworld, enters the nuclear age. In a global conflict, weapons of mass destruction are released, triggering a nuclear winter. In the resulting devastation, Krogan society devolves into a collection of warring clans  
  
  
1800 BCE    A supernova propels the Mu Relay, the only point of access to the remote Pangaea Expanse, out of position. Concealed somewhere in the dense nebula formed by the supernova, the relay's position is effectively lost for centuries. Later, the Rachni rediscover the relay.  
  
1665 BCE    The Salarians discover FTL travel and immediately begin exploring the mass relay system.  
  
  
1000 BCE    Beginning of Holocene Major Extinction Event on Earth, caused by the predation of Humanity.  This is the one major extinction event that Humanity shares with all other sentient races.  However, unlike all other homeworlds this is Earth's unprecedented 26th extinction event and sixth major extinction event.  This gives Humanity the dubious distinction of being, by far, the sentient race to survive the most homeworld extinction events out of any of the known sentient races including the Krogan (19 extinction events of which 4 were major) and Batarians (15 extinction events 3 of which were major).

  
**Council Era - Formation (620 BCE - 1 CE)**  
  
  
680 BCE    The Salarians discover the Citadel and open diplomatic relations with the Asari Republics.  As a result of their focus on exploration over colonization, as well as competition and outright sabotage between the various daltresses, the Salarian Union have only colonized 12 garden worlds and number around 40 billion in population.  By contrast the Asari Republics claim 336 garden worlds and have an estimated population of 1.3 trillion.  To put it mildly, the Salarians are extremely concerned about the threat represented by the much more numerous and technologically advanced Asari.  The Asari on the other hand, after 18,000 years of not finding anything other than non-intelligent lifeforms, or empty worlds with ancient destroyed buildings, are stunned and overjoyed to discover that they are not alone in the galaxy.  
  
  
620 BCE     The Salarian League of One targets several influential Matriarchs, those who caution against trusting the Salarian Union too quickly despite the Asari’s fascination with them, for assassination believing that quietly removing the dissenting voices would lead to quicker improved relations between the two governments.  The attempt is only marginally successful however, and even worse, several of the salarian agents are successfully captured and interrogated.    
  
The political situation between the Republics and Union goes from promising to the cusp of war in an instant as the targeted Matriarchs were well-respected and beloved in the Republics.  Though at first the Union attempts to disavow any knowledge of the assassination attempts or the identities of the assassins, their assertions are not believed and they are finally forced to reveal the identity of the assassins and the name of the Daltress who had given the orders for the operation: The League of One and Daltress Rellon.    
  
Before any arrangements for extradition are be made however, the remaining ten members of the League along with the Daltress who had ordered the assassinations disappear. Before the situation between the two governments deteriorates further, every member of the Union's Inner Cabinet, the highest decision-making office in the Salarian government, is assassinated.  
  
Though diplomatic relations between the two governments rapidly improves over the next few decades the Asari do not forget the actions of the Union which so quickly soured their joy at meeting another intelligent race.  As a result of their new wariness of the Salarian doctrine to strike secretly and win by any means necessary before the enemy is even aware war has been declared, security around the Athame beacon is tightened to ensure that it is not discovered by the Union out of fear they might attempt to destroy it to deny its secrets to the Republics if they were to discover its existence.  
  
_Author’s Note: Yes, this pretty much comes directly from In the Darkest Night.  Though it’s claimed in canon, I don’t really think the Salarians would just volunteer the identities of their most lethal agents without a very compelling reason to do so, and stopping a war you have no chance of winning is a compelling reason.  Conveniently, this is also a good reason for the Republics to not reveal the existence of the beacon to the Union and to make further efforts to protect it from discovery.  It also is a good setup for the wary political reality that’s hidden by the publicly cordial masks the two governments put on when dealing with the rest of the galaxy._  
  
  
10 BCE   The Asari’s second first contact finally occurs when they discover the Volus.  They immediately invite them to the Citadel to meet the Salarians.

 _Author's Note: Please notice that contact with the Volus is occurring prior to the formation of the Council vs the canon five years after Council creation._  
  
  
0 CE     After several centuries of peace and steadily improving relations between the Union and Republics, and spurred by the discovery of the Volus, the two governments decide to form the Citadel Council as a center of the rapidly expanding galactic community. This year is also known as 0 GS, the beginning of the Galactic Standard (GS) timeline.

 

 **Council Era - First Expansion (1 CE - 5001 CE)**  
  
  
5 CE     The Citadel Council commissions the Volus to draw up the Unified Banking Act, which establishes a standard galactic currency known as the credit and links all galactic economies.  This Act is built off the varied agreements already in place between the Asari and Salarians.  
  
  
65 CE     The Council grants the Volus the honor of being the first non-Council species with an embassy at the Citadel, rather than a Council seat.  
  
  
1138 CE     First contact is made with the Batarians. They are granted an embassy a century later.  
  
   
2278 CE     The Asari discover the Elcor home system and help the Elcor locate and activate their nearest mass relay. "Within one Elcor lifetime" they establish a regular trade route to the Citadel and are granted an embassy.  
  
  
2803 CE     First contact is made with the Hanar. They are granted an embassy in two decades.  
  
  
3845 CE     First contact is made with the the Quarians. They are granted an embassy several decades later due to their reclusiveness and distance from the Citadel.  
  
  
**Council Era - War and Rebellion (5001 CE - 9890 CE)**  
  
  
5001 CE     The Rachni, a species of highly intelligent hive-minded insects, are discovered when a Salarian Union expedition opens a dormant mass relay leading to their star systems. The Rachni prove to be hostile and begin a drawn-out war with the rest of the galaxy. Negotiation with the Rachni Queens is impossible because they cannot be contacted in their underground nests on the toxic Rachni worlds.  
  
  
8080 CE     The Rachni Wars continue; the insectoid race strikes indiscriminately at all colony worlds; but due to the fact that the Union is spatially closest to Rachni space and their colony worlds are more vulnerable to attack than those of the Republics due to the smaller size of their naval forces and population, the Salarians are more devastated by the ongoing attacks.  Therefore, when the Salarians make first contact with the primitive Krogan they quickly make the decision to uplift them, manipulating the Krogan into acting as soldiers for the Citadel Council. The Krogan prove able to survive the harsh environments of the Rachni worlds and pursue the Rachni into their nests, systematically eradicating queens and eggs.  
  
_Author’s Note: You will notice that both the Rachni and Krogan Wars last much longer than in canon.  Honestly, it’s to both expand the post-Council timeline, and I’m assuming that both the Asari and Salarians are smart enough to deploy forces at the relay bottlenecks into their systems and destroy most hostile forces before they ever become a threat. The Republics in particular in this story are strong enough to protect their territory from the Rachni and Krogan._  
  
  
8900 CE    The Rachni are declared extinct. In gratitude for their aid during the Rachni Wars, the Council rewards the Krogan a new homeworld. Free of the harsh environment of Tuchanka, the krogan population explodes.  
  
  
8900-9300 CE     The Krogan begin to expand exponentially, colonizing many new worlds. Growing concerns about their expansion lead to the founding of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel.  
  
  
9346-9353 CE    The most devastating pandemic in Humanity’s history, called the Black Death, occurs, reducing Earth’s human population from an estimated 450 million down to 350–375 million.  
  
  
9393 CE    Beelo Gurji, a salarian operative, is appointed the first Spectre by the Citadel Council.  
  
  
9400 CE:   The Krogan Rebellions - Krogan warlords leverage veterans of the Rachni Wars to annex territory from other races in Citadel space. Eventually the Council demands withdrawal from the Asari colony of Lusia, but the Krogan refuse. A preemptive coordinated strike is made on Krogan infrastructures by the Salarian STG, Asari commandos, and the newly formed Council Spectre Agents. The Krogan Rebellions begin.  The Krogan are quickly evicted from Luisa by Republic forces with the exception of those who are bondmates of asari and did not participate in any attacks.  
  
  
9679 CE    The Krogan make aggressive first contact with the Turians, starting a third front with apparently little thought as to the strategic consequences of their actions.  The Turians immediately declare war on the Krogan.  
  
9680 CE    The Krogan respond to the initial Turian offensives by devastating Turian colonies with weapons of mass destruction, the Turians vow to stop the Krogan from ever becoming a threat again.  
  
  
9686 CE    The Citadel Council makes first contact with the Turians, and though the Turians are initially suspicious of Asari overtures they agree to coordinate against the Krogan.  
  
  
9701 CE    With the subtle encouragement of the Asari, the Volus make overtures to the Turian Hierarchy. They are accepted as a client race in exchange for the military protection of their worlds and shipping lanes the following year.

  
9710 CE    Realizing that the Krogan will never give in as long as they can replenish their fighters, the Turians unleash a Salarian-engineered bio-weapon known as the genophage on the Krogan. The Krogan population starts its decline.

  
9800 CE    The Krogan Rebellions end, though scattered krogan insurgent actions continue for decades.  The Turians fill the military and peacekeeping niche left by the decimated Krogan.  The Citadel Conventions are drawn up in the wake of the conflict.  


**Council Era - Second Expansion (9890 CE - 10157 CE)**

  
9890 CE The Turians are granted a seat on the Citadel Council in recognition for their service in the Krogan Rebellions.

9895 CE:    The Geth War - The Geth, machines created by the Quarians as a source of cheap labor, become self-aware. Fearing a geth uprising, the quarians begin dismantling them. The geth revolt against their quarian masters. In the resulting conflict--known to the geth as the Morning War--the geth systematically drive the quarians from their own worlds. The surviving quarians are reduced to living as spacefaring nomads aboard the Migrant Fleet. Contrary to expectations, the geth do not venture outside the former quarian systems into wider Citadel space, instead isolating themselves from the rest of the galaxy behind the Perseus Veil. As punishment for creating the geth, the Citadel Council closes the quarian embassy on the Citadel.  
  
10000 CE    The Drell make first contact with the Hanar around this time. With their homeworld Rakhana severely depleted and no spaceflight capability, the Drell were poised for a massive population crash by 10025 CE. Agreeing to help, the hanar mount a large-scale rescue operation and evacuate approximately 375,000 drell to their own homeworld, Kahje, over the following decade. The remaining 11 billion drell on Rakhana gradually perish, warring over the last reserves of food and water.  
  
10125 CE    The Yahg, an intelligent pre-spaceflight race, are discovered on the planet Parnack. Ambassadors representing the Citadel Council arrive on the planet and attempt to open diplomatic contact. After the ambassadors are killed by the predatory yahg, the Council ceases all contact with the Yahg and declares Parnack off-limits.  
  
10148 CE:    Humanity discovers a small cache of highly advanced Prothean technology hidden deep beneath the surface of Mars on the south polar region of Promethei Planum. Building on the remnants of this long extinct race, humans quickly explore the science of mass effect fields, leading to the development of faster than light travel and beginning detailed exploration of the Sol system.  
  
10149 CE    Following information from the translated data cache on Mars, humans discover that Charon, Pluto's moon, is actually a massive piece of dormant Prothean technology, a mass relay, encased in ice. Once activated, Jon Grissom leads the first team of explorers through the relay, which instantaneously transports them to another relay in Arcturus, 36 light-years away. The explorers discover that the mass relays are part of a vast network, making travel across the galaxy possible.  
  
The Systems Alliance charter is signed by the eighteen largest nations on Earth. The Alliance soon becomes the military and exploratory spearhead of humanity.  
  
  
**Council Era - Advent of Humanity (10157 CE - 10183 CE)**  
  
  
10157 CE     First Contact War/Relay 314 Incident - Humanity makes violent first contact with another spacefaring race: the Turians. The turians observe human explorers attempting to activate a dormant mass relay, a practice forbidden by galactic law after the Rachni Wars, and attack. Over the next three months, a brief but tense conflict known by humans as the First Contact War and by Turians as the Relay 314 Incident ensues.  
  
10183 CE     The Eden Prime War occurs and due to the actions of the first human Spectre, Commander Shepard, the Humanity becomes the fourth Citadel Council member.


	3. Codex Changes for the Asari and the Asari Republics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: With few exceptions I should only be covering differences between my universe and canon here so if you don’t see something mentioned assume it’s unchanged from the canon codex entry. A significant amount of this will come from my work in the MEU forum writing boards where worked on the Asari Republics documentation. Mixed in are the background notes I made up for myself to use for any asari characters.

The Asari Republics are by far the largest and most populous of all the members of the Citadel Council. Even though the Turian Hierarchy more publicly fulfills this purpose for the Council, the Republics actually have the most powerful military, both in naval power and by the number of active and reserve Huntresses and Commandos. Though active duty forces comprise only 10% of the Republics population, once you add in their reserve forces the percentage of the population with military training rises to around 25% or around 300 billion personnel all of which are biotics.

The Republics territory includes 445 colonized garden worlds, and they are actively terraforming several other marginal worlds. In total, the Republics claim over 2300 worlds and planetoids, though many have only very small mining or research outposts. Over 1.2 trillion Asari live within the Republics’ borders.

Fortunately for the rest of the galaxy, given that Asari make up fully half of the known Galaxies population, the Asari value cooperation over competition; their actions and decisions, while they may be manipulative, tend toward outcomes that are nurturing instead of exploitative; and they tend to be kind toward others rather than cruel. There are of course always outliers, but that was the reason the ancient Order of Justicars was formed and still remains to this day. Those who go against the norms of Asari society are likely to find themselves on the Justicar execution lists and tirelessly pursued by those who will not be bribed, coerced or manipulated into offering mercy.

 

**Asari Biology**

Life on Thessia evolved in an eezo-rich environment, traces of eezo are found in its soil, water and food supply, because of this Thessia is home to a wealth of both biotically active and eezo-resistant species, one of which became the apex species of the planet, the Asari.

Evolved from marine mammals, Asari still bear evolutionary traits from their aquatic past such as thicker skin with a thin layer of fat underneath as insulation against losing too much body heat to water, membrane protected ears, and the protective cartilaginous headfolds. Asari have less problems with changing pressures due to water depth than more terrestrial species such as humans. They do not need to equalize their ears for shallow dives and they can hear almost as well under water as they can above it.

Asari infants when born have quite soft and malleable headfolds, as they age the amount of cartilage in the headfolds increase they become more rigid, providing increased protection to the skull.

The Asari vocal tract is located toward the back of the neck. As a result of this Asari have a relatively longer nasal cavity than most species, resulting in a larger area covered by olfactory epithelium and a correspondingly high density of olfactory sensory neurons. Asari have two distinct olfactory systems, the main olfactory system which detects volatile chemicals and the accessory olfactory system which detects fluid-phase chemicals like pheromones. The only other species whose sense of smell rivals the Asari are the Krogan.

**Appearance**

The average height of an Asari is around six feet, about the same size and height as male humans. Asari have as wide a range of body types as humans. Some asari are tall, some are short, some are quite willowy, while others are very muscular.

The varied markings often seen on Asari are cosmetic only, not genetic. They may be painted on, using paints similar to the ones Turians use to make their colony markings, or in some cases the markings are semi-permanent tattoos. These markings in ancient times served several purposes. The color of the markings identified the bearer as either a peer, noble, or commoner, the design indicated their lineage, if peer or noble born, or birth area if they were commoner born. Subtle variations in lineage markings served to identify whether or not one was of the primary lineage line, or of a sept of the lineage. In modern times, these markings are merely traditional, as the Asari have a purely democratic form of government.

SA Addendum: While it is politically correct to say Lineage markings are merely traditional, direct observation of the Asari show that deference still seems automatically given to any asari with the purple markings of a peerage level Lineage.  Crowds of asari part for them, and in normal everyday observed interactions between asari on the Citadel they are treated with more deference than those who bear either noble or commoner Lineage markings.

**Psychology**

Asari are unisex in habits and personality, possessing what bisexual species identify as ‘male’ and ‘female’ characteristics. Some Asari may seem more ‘masculine’ and some more ‘feminine’ to bi-gendered species. The pronoun nais should be used when referring to an adult asari rather than he or she.

Maidens, Matrons and Matriarchs view sensuality as both an art and weapon at their disposal, and scorn those who try to impose controlling moral judgments upon their behavior.

**Asari to Human Age Equivalents:**

A 40-year-old Asari is approximately as mentally and physically developed as a human 16-year-old. (Based off Samara’s statement about Morinth choosing to run at age 40 and that being very young for an asari to be on their own)

An 80-year-old Asari is approximately equivalent to a 19 to 20-year-old human.

A 100-year-old Asari is approximately equivalent to a 21 to 22-year-old human.

From here the age ranges break down as centuries of experience give older asari maidens and especially asari matrons more experience than any shorter-lived race while their bodies remain capable of bearing children until they are 800 years old or even slightly older.

**Asari Pheromones**

Pheromones, combined with body language are an essential part of Asari non-verbal communication as their exceptional sense of smell enables them to detect and respond to even subtle changes in scent. Asari have an instinctual limited ability to alter their pheromones which can be brought into conscious control with bio-feedback techniques. Pheromones are of course used to attract and arouse mates, but they are also used to asset dominance or submission, indicate threat level or conversely reassure that threat is not intended - they are an integral, silent part of the Asari social language. Once first contact was made with the Salarians, the Asari quickly learned how to alter their pheromones such that they are able to affect members of other species.

**Asari Biotics**

All Asari are naturally biotic from birth, but to properly develop their biotics they require a small amount of eezo in their diet. Asari on Thessia get this though their food, those born on colony planets however must take supplements to provide the needed element. Asari are the only known race that are capable of incorporating small amounts of eezo into their bodies throughout their lifespan, all other races can only incorporate the element during fetal development and in a few rare cases during puberty. This is why Asari matriarchs are the strongest biotics known in the galaxy, and why Asari matrons are usually stronger biotics than maidens.

Biotics however come with a high caloric requirement compared to non-biotics. The average asari requires approximately 3000 kcal/day; huntresses and commandos in a combat situation can require up to 7000 kcal/day or more. This is a very high average caloric requirement for a species, and is perhaps the greatest weakness the Asari face, where their food supplies threatened they would quickly face starvation and death as their bodies have a very high basal metabolic rate.

 

**Asari History**

Covered in the Timeline.

 

**Asari Culture**

Asari identify themselves primarily by their maternal Lineages; complex familial ties bind together daughters, mothers, sisters, aunts and cousins, and can often be traced back to the founding of Thessia’s ancient city-states.

SA Addendum: Asari Lineages hold their assets and investments in common, in Lineage trusts with the matriarchs of the Lineage controlling the trust and disbursing income to the members of the Lineage.  Though the Republics do not recognize any difference between the ancient noble Lineages and commoner Lineages, the fact remains that the noble Lineages of Thessia are the wealthiest known galactic legal entities, the 'poorest' of which are managing trillions of credits and the wealthiest of which are actually estimated to control quadrillions of credits.  All of the ancient peerage level Lineages, and several of the noble level Lineages own entire garden worlds within Asari space as the Lineage funded that planet's entire colonization effort. The Lero Lineage, to which the current Asari Councilor belongs, controls twelve garden worlds with a combined population of over 50 billion inhabitants within the Republics.

-Any asari with purple peerage markings belongs to a Lineage with more power and wealth than all of the Systems Alliance citizens combined, one should always keep this fact in mind when dealing with them.

  
**Cultural Attitudes Towards Bondings**

One might assume that since the Asari disapprove of intraspecies conception and hold that such reproductive meldings are ‘wasteful’ as they deprive ones offspring of the unique genetic traits to be gained from mating outside their species, that the Asari similarly would hold asari-non-asari pair bondings to be superior to asari-asari pair bondings. That however, is not at all the case. While the Asari do not openly disapprove of such pairings, there is the unspoken awareness that there is an inherent power imbalance between interspecies couples that cannot be overcome as the meld is always under the complete control of the asari partner. Therefore ‘true’ bondings can only occur between two asari.

When you compare the numbers of legally recognized asari-asari pairings to asari-non-asari pairings in the latest publicly available Republics census data it becomes quite clear that while the asari may prefer non-asari as reproductive partners, they definitely do not prefer them for long term relationships. Asari-Asari bondings comprise ninety-five percent of all legally recognized bondings within the Republics. How then do Asari deal with what seem to be diametrically opposing societal expectations for relationships and reproduction?

By normalizing the inclusion, either long term or short term, of a carefully chosen non-asari partner into the relationship in a triad arrangement for the explicit purpose of bearing and raising children together with them.  One benefit of such triads, especially when the partner is not krogan, is that when the inevitable death of the partner occurs during their asari offspring/s youth or young adulthood, the young asari still has two asari parents to turn to for support and the asari bondmates have the support of each other.  So well established and normalized are such arrangements now that Asari law recognizes and grants certain privileges, such as citizenship, to such alien partners provided that such an arrangement has been formalized by registering it with the Republics government.

**Xe’nios Contracts**

Though the term Xe’nios Contract is often translated as indentured contract, that is not an accurate translation. Historically Thessia was ruled by thirty Lineages to which most asari owed their allegiance either by birth or by swearing their oaths of service to that Lineages Potinia. In order to avoid mating with relatives, Asari reproductive instincts are strongly exogamous. Because of this, asari maidens and matrons without a bondmate instinctively desire to roam outside of kinship groups, the Lineages of their birth. This necessitated a complex set of rules among the ruling Lineages governing the conduct and behavior of these visiting maidens and matrons, all watched over by the goddess Tevura.

These wandering maidens and matrons, if they wished to stay within another Lineage’s territory for more than a few weeks would take temporary oaths of allegiance to that Lineage’s Potinia. These oaths were only for a certain time period and did not override the maiden or matron’s obligations to their birth Lineages. After such an oath was taken the maiden or matron was known as a Xe’nios or guest member/citizen of the Lineage. It is from this ancient practice that modern Xe’nios contracts developed, and today they are most often used to give exceptional, but disadvantaged, maidens educational or apprenticeship opportunities that they would not otherwise be able to obtain. Most often such Xe’nios contracts provide for the full cost of an education, boarding and food as well as a stipend and in return the individual agrees to work in their profession for their contract holder for a specified period of time after obtaining their degree. Some of these Xe’nois contracts are held by the Asari Republics government or military who employees such individuals as civilian workers after they obtain their degree or complete their apprenticeship program.

-Thus Pelessaria B'Sayle born in Port Lerama, Hyetiana was able to obtain an engineering degree upon Thessia, her reference to going to school under an ‘indentured’ contract.

 

**Asari Government**

Because of their millennium long lifespans, asari have a ‘long view’ uncommon to other species. This is reflected not only in their culture but in their form of government and ways of governing as well.

Asari tend to be conservative and take a centrist approach to most issues. They prefer to spread their influence to other species through cultural and intellectual influence rather than though military might, thus their preference for diplomatic solutions or the use of economic pressure over force wherever possible.

Nonetheless, despite their preferences for diplomatic resolution to problems, Asari instinctively seek to maintain a stable balance of economic, political, and military power. This implies that if the need arises, a Republic will not hesitate to utilizing military action in order to preserve stability once diplomacy has been exhausted. For example, after decades of attempted negotiations with the krogan squatting upon Lusia, the Asari Republics promptly reclaimed it by force.

**Asari Matriarchs - Influence, Power and Government**

Matriarchs hold great influence and power in Asari society and in their all-inclusive legislature; however some matriarchs hold more power and influence than others. While all matriarchs are given respect due to their age, political power and influence in Asari society do not come solely from longevity. Political power also does not come solely from financial or business holdings, though both may increase a matriarch’s political power. In order to be politically powerful a matriarch must be both well-known and well-regarded by a significant number of younger asari as well as by her fellow matriarchs for her judgment and word to hold weight among them. Less publicly well known matriarchs may hold significant political power among their peers due to their political connections and acumen.

**Relations with the League of the Terminus**

Over the 28,000 year long expansion of the Republics, Lineages sponsored and outfitted multiple colonization efforts wholly as independent entities without much if any governmental oversight. These colonies were setup and developed essentially as independent entities until the Republics’ borders expanded to include them, a process that was usually peaceful as the colony was still under the control of the Lineage which sponsored the original colonization effort.

The core Terminus Systems asari colonies were founded in exactly the same manner except that they were founded farther away from the Republics and thus were never reclaimed by them. Thus the Terminus Systems asari colonies share Lineage ties with those Republics colonies founded by the same Lineage and of course with the founding Lineage on Thessia.

Over time, the Terminus Systems colonies became independent in truth, their allegiance belonging to the Terminus System branch of their Lineage, and the Warlord leading it, instead of to the founding Lineage’s Potenia upon Thessia. That does not mean however that there are not still close ties between the two Lineage branches and between what is now known as the League of the Terminus and the Asari Republics in general, as the Hegemony found out when they invaded Esan.

Outside of the core Terminus Systems asari colony worlds, this generalization begins to break down as newer asari Warlords have risen to power independent of the older established asari Terminus Lineages. This does not mean however, that these Warlords do not possess familial and/or political ties and have influence within the Republics. Warlord Aria T’Loak for example, one of the most powerful of the asari Warlords to come into power within the last millennium, holds significant political influence within the Asari Republics despite her having no known ties to any Republics Lineages. As the undisputed ruler of the Omega Nebula as well as several Terminus System worlds, Aria T’Loak is able to maintain her widespread influence due to her connections within the Republic, her political acumen in gathering and maintaining her Terminus Systems intelligence network, and the fact that a stable Omega Station is of great benefit to the Republics though it’s trade with Illium.

 

**Council of Matriarchs and Head Matriarchs for the Individual Republic's**

The matriarchs with the greatest influence and power in each republic are invited to sit on the Council of Matriarchs for that republic. Matriarchs for a republic's Council of Matriarchs tend to be chosen equally from three spheres of influence: political, economic and military. These matriarchs oversee the daily and emergency decisions necessary for the republic to function; make selections for high ranking civilian government officials, such as the Head Matriarch for the republic; confirm the republic's defense forces selection of their senior military officers as well as the republics High Command Republic Commander; and make decisions on matters which are too sensitive to the security of a republic to be discussed publicly among the plebiscite.

The Head Matriarch of a republic is selected by the Council of Matriarchs for that republic and is accountable to them and to the plebiscite. This matriarch is the Head of State of each republic's civil government and is empowered to implement the decisions of the republic's Council of Matriarchs and the laws passed by the republic's plebiscite.

**Council of Matriarchs for the Republics**

The Council of Matriarchs for the Republics is comprised of at least one matriarch per individual republics, which may or may not be a republic's Head Matriarch, and a further selection of matriarchs who are chosen for their influence and wisdom in the areas of political, economic and military power regardless of their home world or place of residence. The Council of Matriarchs for the Republics mirrors the functions and responsibilities of the individual republic's Council of Matriarchs: they make selections for high ranking government officials for the Asari Republics civil government; confirm the Asari Republics Navy's selection of senior military officers as well as the flag officer chosen as Admiral of the Fleet for the Asari Republics Navy; oversee the daily and emergency decisions necessary for the Asari Republics to function; and make decisions on matters which are too sensitive to the security of the Asari Republics to be discussed publicly among the plebiscite.

There is no Head Matriarch for the Asari Republics, instead the senior executives of the civilian government of the Asari Republics and the Asari Republics Navy High Command Admiral of the Fleet reports directly to the Council of Matriarchs for the Republics.

**Legislature**

The Asari have very few politicians and hold only one election for the position of Citadel Councilor for the Asari Republics. Instead the asari have an all-inclusive legislature that citizens participate in at will. Policy debates take place in VI moderated forums and chat rooms and all aspects of policy are open to the plebiscite. In any given debate the asari tend to give the greatest credence to the opinions of their matriarchs. The most politically powerful matriarchs are both well-known and well-regarded by a significant number of asari as well as having the respect of their fellow matriarchs.

**Judiciary**

The Asari legal system began in ancient antiquity, driven by the biological needs of the asari. Asari reproductive instincts are strongly exogamous, and sent the asari roaming outside their kinship groups to avoid mating with relatives. These journeys necessitated a system of rules governing guests, fugitives, and alliances across the ancient independent city-states and republics-- all watched over by the goddess Tevura, the ancient asari goddess of love, sex, travel, and law.

**Council of Justices**

The Council of Justices is comprised of one matriarch from each of the republics who serves as a Justice for their republic. They preside over all criminal and legal matters which fall outside the jurisdiction of the Republic Courts Systems. Treason against the Asari Republics, criminal misconduct by members of the Council of Matriarchs of the Republics in their duties for the Asari Republics, and criminal misconduct by the senior officers of the Asari Republics Navy would fall under their jurisdiction.

**Justicar Order**

The highly respected Justicar Order is the oldest law enforcement body still in existence in the Asari Republics. The Justicar Order began out of the need for a law enforcement body empowered to pursue dangerous criminals across the borders of the individual republics. Each justicar is sworn to follow the Code of the Justicars, which is comprised of five thousand sutras that describe every possible situation a justicar may encounter. The Code of the Justicars pledge the justicar to the protection of the innocent, the punishment of the guilty, and defense of common law and the norms of asari society.

Within the Asari Republics the Justicar Order is still legally empowered to carry out their ancient duties as proscribed by the Common Constitution of the Republics. If misconduct by a justicar is suspected, they will be called to present themselves before their fellow Justicars for judgement, depending on the severity of the offense, or before the Council of Justices in cases of extreme alleged misconduct.

An applicant joins the Justicar Order as an Acolyte once accepted, upon learning all 5000 Sutras of the Jusitcar Code and meeting the martial requirements, the Acolyte becomes a Disciple. Disciples undergo further teaching in the Code to ensure they understand how to apply it to any real-life situation they may encounter as well as honing their martial abilities. Only once the Order is satisfied that the Disciple is ready to take on the duties of a Justicar are they allowed to take their final oaths and swear their lives to serving the Code. At that point they are Justicars and are empowered with the full legal rights and duties of the Justicar Order.

"The Code at its basis represents the beliefs and values of the Asari, it was created tens of millennium ago when the first city-states came into being. At that time there was a need for huntresses who were willing to give up their families and loyalties to any one city-state in order to be entrusted with the responsibility to track down the most dangerous criminals and bring them to justice no matter in which city-state they attempted to hide. That is why Justicars swear to follow only the Code and not any one person or republic and why their authority to pursue criminals whose names have been published to the Republics execution lists is recognized by all of the Republics even to this day." - Matriarch Aliasha in Sins of the Past

**Republic Courts**

The court systems of the individual republics interprets and applies the laws of their republic. They also provide a mechanism for the resolution of disputes. The republic courts, by the Common Constitution of the Republics, have the power of judicial review. If a law is passed by the plebiscite of the republic which is incompatible with a higher norm, such as the Common Constitution of the Republics or Council law, the court is empowered to annul it.

 

**Asari Military**

Each Republic organizes its own military according to its local needs and elects their own leaders to command them. Units from the populous city-states are generally equipped than those from colony farm villages. While there is no set uniform requirement for the Asari Republics militaries, most Republics provide armor and weapons to their military members thus giving them a uniform appearance.

Asari military training is based upon ancient hunting tactics and its members are still called huntresses. Kurinth, for example is the ancient Asari goddess of both war and hunting, pointing out how similar the two activities are in the Asari mindset. Huntresses fight individually, in pairs, or in teams and squads based upon pairs of huntresses or commandos.

The military forces of an individual Republic are commanded by that Republic’s High Command, they are lead by a matriarch who serves as the overall leader of the Defense Forces both Guard and Navy for that Republic.

The various Republic High Commands coordinate their actions though an overall Asari Republics High Command which determines things like overall patrol routes for Asari controlled space.

**Asari Government and Military Positions by Life Stage**

Maiden asari, being functionally the equivalent of a human 16 to 25 year old, are not found in any high ranking Asari government or military position. They will have great difficulty being taken seriously by older asari due to their relative inexperience especially if their opinions differ from those generally accepted. Maiden asari are found in lower ranking leadership positions once they have proven their leadership ability to the satisfaction of their superiors. Older asari maidens are more likely to be in low to low-midgrade leadership positions, especially if they are being groomed for leadership. For example, a promising older maiden might find themselves in command of a Frigate.

Most mid to mid high level Asari government and military positions are taken by matron asari and younger matriarchs. For example, most Cruiser command positions are likely held by matrons.

High level Asari government and military positions are occupied primarily by matriarchs; they may be occupied by especially promising older matrons as well. For example, command of a Dreadnought might be held by an older matron whose expected to attain flag rank once they become a matriarch.

**Huntress Academy Training**

Huntress Training occurs in training facilities which mix Military Academy style academic and military training with a Martial Arts Dojo, and are lead by retired Commandos or Huntresses with a gift for teaching. Asari may enter a Huntress Training Academy at 40 years of age, there young nais complete their basic education requirements as well as undergoing extensive bioitc and martial arts training, physical fitness training, small and large arms weapons training, and intensive small unit tactics and strategic battlefield awareness training to become capable Huntresses. Depending on the ability of the student this will take around ten years. After the initial ten years, students may either remain at a Huntress Training Academy to finish up their training for the Republics Defense Forces which takes on average another three years of training or move to a specialized Naval Defense Forces Training Facility for an additional five years of training before successful graduates are accepted into the Republics Naval Defense Forces.

Huntress Training Academy's almost universally offer boarding depending on where a student lives and if it's practical for the student to travel back and forth or live at the training facility.

_From the Codex: One-on-one, a huntress is practically unbeatable, possessing profound tactical insight, a hunter's eye, and a dancer's grace and alacrity. Biotics are common enough that some capability is a requirement to be trained as a huntress; lack of biotic talent excludes a young asari from military service._

SA Addendum: Examination of the depth training provided by these Huntress Training Facilities, and the capability displayed by even the newest Republics Defense Forces Huntress, shows that Huntresses receive training equivalent of a human junior officer who has attended both a preparatory military academy for their high school training and then attended one of the official Systems Alliance Military Academies. Even the most junior Huntress of the Republics Defense Forces is a very well trained and capable biotic and close quarters combat specialist.

**Commando Academy Training**

While in rare cases Commando training may be offered early, due to the fact that Commandos are both expected to be excellent Huntresses as well as strong biotics, most asari will have served in their Republic's military for at least a few decades before they are offered the chance to enter Commando training. Commandos are acknowledged to be the deadliest warriors in the entire known galaxy. Commando training is pure biotic and special forces type training which encompasses four to six years of dedicated training depending on specialty and then a lifetime of on-the job training afterward to keep their skills up to date. Commandos can choose to specialize in advanced tactical training such as infiltration, combat engineer, advanced biotic techniques and various other combat skillsets such as close quarters combat, heavy weapons training, sniper marksmanship training etc.

**Advanced Military Training**

Advanced training for members of the Asari Republics Navy and Asari Republics Defense forces beyond huntress and commando training includes: Asari Republics Naval Officer Training, Asari Republics Guard Officer Training, Asari Republics Advanced Naval Officer Training, Asari Republics Advanced Guard Officer Training, and the Asari Republics Command School. None of these are required for members of the individual republic defense forces though they may be available to them. Asari Republic Fleet members are required to attend Naval Officer Training before becoming Lieutenants, Advanced Naval Officer Training before becoming a Commander and Command School upon invitation once they attain the rank of Captain and are anticipated to rise to the rank of Admiral.

 

SA Addendum: Exhaustive examination of every record we can find of the Rachni War and Krogan Rebellions, leads Intelligence to believe that the Asari Republics could have ended either conflict whenever they chose to commit the amount of forces necessary. The fact that they didn’t, and let both wars drag out for centuries, indicates that the Council of Matriarchs was playing a long game. We believe what was actually occurring was that the Asari were letting the Rachni and Krogan keep the Union occupied with the defense of their colonies. The discovery of the Rachni by the Salarians was actually during the Union’s greatest period of expansion. The Rachni completely wiped out several of their newer colonies and forced the Union into a defensive battle just to protect their core colonies - it’s highly likely this was just the outcome the Republics desired. By the time the Krogan Rebellion was ended by the Turians, the Union had been reduced to almost the same amount of colonies as they had started with before they began their expansion. The Republics on the other hand, actually lost none of their colonies from either war. Even Luisa, whose occupation started the Rebellions was retaken by the Asari in less than a month.

SA Additional Data (recovered wiped data): TLDR! The Asari let the Rachni and Krogan beat the fuck out of the Salarians for them to keep them from expanding while rotating their forces through their front for live combat training purposes. (Seriously, no shitting we found videos where they taped some of their live training. Man those stupid Krogan, they should have just surrendered when given the chance instead of going all blood-ragey and then being used as training aids. Plus, I’m pretty sure they let us find these videos.) Message received then: Do not piss of the Republics, they can be -cold- malicious bitches when their angry with you.

 

**Republics Intelligence Services (RIS)**

Intelligence services are provided to both the Asari Republics government and military by the Republics Intelligence Service, which is widely regarded one of the largest galactic intelligence networks.

SA Addendum: While the Salarian Union’s Special Tactics Group has the reputation of being the penultimate governmental intelligence service, the Republics Intelligence Service may actually deserve the title. This is partially due to the fact that the Asari have by far the largest galactic population and that the presence of asari maidens is almost ubiquitous in sales, bar tending and mercenary work. While these maidens are not official intelligence assets, intercepted communications reveal that they share nearly everything they see and hear with older siblings, cousins and parents. We believe that at some point this information makes its way into the hands of official intelligence agents and is summarized into their reports, giving the RIS an unparalleled amount of sources to mine for data.


	4. Codex Changes for the Turians and the Turian Hierarchy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ME2 lost something from ME1 in making the Turians more human-like and relate-able, for one thing Cerberus in ME2 looked even more like a hysterical overreaction to the, now small, threat Humanity faced from - well any race really. One thing I really like about OSBC is that Cerberus actually looks reasonable, their bigoted for sure, but you can understand why they exist because the Galaxy is actually a scary and threatening place for Humans. While I don’t want to go to the extremes of OSBC, I do want to keep that sense that Humanity is small, and there are actual threats out there which we have very good reasons to fear. The extreme elements present in the Turian Hierarchy, who would gladly restart the FCW and take it to its bloody logical conclusion with the complete conquest of the SA, are one of these reasons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: With few exceptions I should only be covering differences between my universe and canon here so if you don’t see something mentioned assume it’s unchanged from the canon codex entry.

**Turian Biology**  
  
**Appearance**  
  
The average height of a female Turian is around six feet, while the average height for a male Turian is around six and a half feet tall.  Thus, they are, on average, slightly taller than humans.  
  
**Turian Psychology**  
  
Turian culture is an example of a race adopting cultural mores and values which limit their more self-destructive characteristics.  Without their cultural indoctrination of the values of honor and discipline, Turians would slip into excesses of savage conquest that would threaten their very existence. This is not mere conjecture, but a fact that is easily provable by even a cursory examination of Turian history which is replete with examples of the victors completely wiping out those who opposed them, even to the last child.  Turians still have difficulty today understanding anything less than complete capitation to a superior force and respond with increasing levels of aggression and dominance to any signs of rebellion in those that have surrendered to them.  Rebellion in fact, once surrender is given, is seen as dishonorable behavior and those that engage in it inherently dishonorable and untrustworthy.    
  
On a deeper level, Turians simply do not seem to understand such behavior and see it as dangerously deviant; Turians either fight to the death or they surrender and fully accept the culture of the conquering group.  Of concern is the fact that turians also do not seem to either understand or accept such behavior in other species, no allowances seem to be made in their military rules of engagement for species who are not Turian and as such cannot reasonably be expected have the same psychology, beliefs or culture.  It is an odd blind spot given that the Hierarchy has not met any race that is similar to their own in this manner.  
  
  
**Turian Hierarchy Government**  
  
**Political Factions - Expansionists**  
  
It has been long evident to observers of the Hierarchy that there exists an element within the Turian government which ardently believes that the Galaxy would be better served if every race was brought under the orderly governance of the Hierarchy.  It is not uncommon for Turian politicians to openly speak of the necessity of expanding the influence and military power of the Hierarchy in the Galaxy, and then using it to purge corruption and chaos in order to bring the benefits of discipline and order.  Unsurprisingly, no other Galactic government agrees with this viewpoint.  
  
  
**Client Races**

In addition to the Volus, the Hierarchy claims five species as Client Races. However, the Volus are the only race to voluntarily join the Hierarchy as a client race, the other five races are relative newcomers to Citadel space who were conquered by the Hierarchy upon their first contact overtures turning violent. All of these races had recently managed to activate the relays in their homeworld systems when they came into contact with Hierarchy patrol fleets. Once first contact devolved into violence, these races were quickly conquered and occupied by Hierarchy forces.

-The Tols are a bi-pedal aggressive reptilian race.  
-The Eviegs are six-limbed marsupial race who are primarily nocturnal.  
-The Isreof are an amphibious race with the ability to spit a powerful venom that is deadly to all known Galactic races.  
-The Cozeord are an eight-legged, hive-minded insectoid race similar to the extinct Rachni.  
-The Verg are a matriarchal bi-pedal race, who bear an uncanny resemblance to the werewolves of Human mythology. The Verg are in the process of taking their first steps towards regaining their independence from the Hierarchy with the re-establishment of their self-governance and the withdrawal of Hierarchy occupational forces from their home world, Ceana.

Up until recently treatment of client races by the occupying Hierarchy troops was directly related to the extent to which the client race cooperated with said troops and followed the rules and laws established by the Hierarchy’s occupational government. However, since the establishment of Citadel Council’s Hierarchy Client Race Oversight Committee, strict rules and guidelines have been established which the Hierarchy’s occupational forces must follow when interacting with client races.  


SA Addendum: Consensus in Intelligence is that the Republics and Union carefully orchestrated the Hierarchy’s initial contacts with the Volus specifically so that the Hierarchy would accept them as a client race to handle their finances. For the Republics and Union this had the desired side effect of tying the Hierarchy to a currency based system and the Galactic markets which then acted as an impediment on the Hierarchy’s military growth. Up until this time the Hierarchy bothered little with such financial niceties as government fiscal budgets, surplus or debt. They made sure there were enough turians assigned to produce the raw materials (organic or mineral) needed to ensure no one starved, that all maintenance was taken care of, and that all new building (whether civil or military) was accomplished. Influence was accrued by certain families depending on their aggregate citizenship level, but there was no real wealth accumulation. The pre-Citadel Hierarchy was in many ways the Galaxies first working purely communistic government.

All of this changed with the advent of the Hierarchy’s first contact with the Krogan and then the Asari, and then was cemented when they accepted the Volus as a client race. The first thing the Volus did was establish a material value for materials so that they could be traded on the Galactic market. While seemingly benign on the surface, this was in fact the end of the Hierarchy’s ability to produce anything, whether it be a civic project, weapons or ships essentially only for the amount of food and basic necessities needed by the workers who produced the materials, the intermediate goods and final product.


	5. Codex Changes for the Salarians and the Salarian Union

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Placeholder for salarian codex changes

Placeholder text until I complete the Salarian codex.


	6. Codex Changes for the Batarians and the Batarian Hegemony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: With few exceptions I should only be covering differences between my universe and canon here so if you don’t see something mentioned assume it’s unchanged from the canon codex entry.

“It is overly simplistic to divide social intelligent species into carnivore, omnivore, and herbivore divisions, but sometimes it can be a useful place to start a discussion of derived psychological characteristics. Batarians and Turians are both obligate carnivores in their dietary requirements, they must obtain all of their nutrients primarily from animal tissues. Every other intelligent species with the exception of the Elcor, who are the galaxy’s sole herbivores, are omnivores or opportunistic feeders, able to survive on fresh meat (animal, fish or insect), partially spoiled meat, or select vegetation - or in other words if it didn’t run away fast enough an omnivore can probably eat it - thus the term opportunistic feeder.

Batarians and Turians are also the two species which have displayed, both through their own words and by their actions, that they have difficulty understanding the viewpoints of other species and accepting those viewpoints as valid even thought they might disagree with their own race’s cultural viewpoints. The Turians have several quite vocal proponents of the Hierarchy bringing their ideas of order and meritocracy to the entire galaxy, and cannot seem to quite understand why the rest of us haven’t already enthusiastically embraced this Utopian ideal. While the Turians do not seem to understand why we do not want to be like them, the Batarians do not understand why we do not accept reality - that might is the sole determiner of who rules and who submits, and that all non-Batarians are mere animals who should submit to their rightful masters.

Of the two, I’d much rather live under the Hierarchy than the Hegemony.” - Doctor John Ralhm, Department of Xenoanthropology, University of Cambridge

  
“The Hegemony acts as if the Asari are their races arch-nemesis, standing against the proper order of the universe and generally maliciously thwarting the Batarians from rising to their rightful and ordained galactic role as Masters of all they survey. The Asari in turn, while they make exceptions for individual batarians, despise the Hegemony and upper and mid caste batarians in general as they find the concept of slavery to be abhorrent.

I already hear - but indentured servitude - don't confuse asari indentured servitude with batarian slavery as the intent of the two is completely opposite. The asari idea of indentured servitude is to take someone in need of guidance and then a few years or decades later show them off as exemplary members of society, completely able to now take care of themselves due to their contract holder’s wonderful ability to mentor and guide them. The batarians’ idea of slavery is to so thoroughly break a person that they actually accept the idea they are mere animals and never think of being anything but being a slave to their batarian master for the rest of their lives.

Yes, the Asari are obnoxious and paternalistic? maternalistic? Whatever, their damn snooty and annoying about it, but they are not batarians. Oh, and if you do have one that starts acting like a batarian…well I understand that’s part of what their Justiciars are for, to permanently take care of their sociopaths.” -Major Patrick Riley, Systems Alliance Special Operations Forces N7, Retired

 

 **Batarian History**  
  
**Humiliation at Esan**

Esan was originally colonized by the asari Warlord Yava Edoro in 1689. Warlord Edoro was later killed by the turian Warlord Tullnus Palidros (as their rather publicly tempestuous relationship ended in a very dramatic and violent fashion), and he in turn was defeated by the krogan Warlord Galvok in 1790. While both Warlord Palidros and Warlord Galvok claimed Omega Station, neither warlord was able to also conquer Esan, the sole garden world located within the Omega Nebula.

After Warlord Edoro’s death, Esan remained as an independent asari Terminus colony world until the Batarian Hegemony turned their attention toward the garden world in the early 1900’s. Both the Republics Intelligence Service (RIS) and the intelligence networks of the asari League of the Terminus became alerted to the Hegemony’s plan to forcefully annex Esan as a first step towards taking Omega Station and claiming its remaining eezo resources. From there it was believed, the Hegemony would utilize Omega Station to expand their slaving operations in the Terminus systems, providing a safe place for criminals and slavers to refuel, and sell off their cargo. Even this was believed to be but the first stages of the Hegemony’s long-term plan to expand their borders by weakening the League of the Terminus and then eventually claiming its territories. Neither the Republics nor the League were interested in letting any of these plans come to fruition. The only disagreement between the Republics and the loosely allied rulers of their long independent colonies were over the details of how exactly the Hegemony would be prevented from taking over Esan.

Eventually a plan was agreed upon between the Republics, the League and the government of Esan. When the mixed fleet of pirates, slavers and the Hegemony’s Second Fleet, numbering approximately 200 ships of various classes, arrived on the outer edges of the Farthar System and began their purposefully slow and meant to be intimidating advance toward the first planet orbiting the dwarf red star the Esan planetary governor contacted the Hegemony’s dreadnought, sent up the recently drawn up agreement between Esan and the Asari Republics making the planet and all of the citizens upon it official members of the Republics, and demanded to know why the fleet was present in Republics space. At first it seemed as if this might be enough to persuade at least the Hegemony forces to withdraw, but after a scan of the system revealed the presence of no Republic ships the commander of the Second Fleet, Admiral Sath Crom'korr upon the dreadnought BHV Fist of Khar’Shan, deemed that the documents were only a ruse and demanded that the colony surrender to his forces and preserve their lives by submitting to their rightful enslavement.

Approximately thirty minutes later a combined fleet comprised of the Republics Sixth Fleet as well as a combined fleet from the individual Warlords of the League arrived within system, however they dropped out of FTL as close as safely possible to Esan. The massive combined Asari fleets, numbering almost 400 ships, and led by the massive super-dreadnought Rising Ascension, sister ship to the Destiny Ascension and Dawn Ascension communicated briefly with the surface of the planet and then began their burn toward the approaching Hegemony led fleet as they formed their battle lines. At that point the commander of the Hegemony’s Second Fleet, attempted to raise the Rising Ascension to no effect for it was neither the Republics nor Warlords policy to open any dialog with slavers before attacking unless the lives of innocents were endangered.

At that point the various slaver and pirate ships turned and began to flee only for the Republics Second Fleet to jump into system ahead of their flight path. The various asari Intelligence Services had predicted the actions of the batarians with extremely accuracy, a relatively simple task as Hegemony forces followed extremely detailed orders from their superiors on Khar’shan and RIS agents managed to procure copies of these orders. Flanked on either side by Republic and League fleets, the Hegemony’s Second Fleet was caught in a devastating crossfire and the last vessel belonging of Admiral Crom’korr’s doomed fleet was destroyed less than thirty minutes after the beginning of the engagement. A few slaver and pirate ships managed to successful jump out of the system, only to find another mixed League fleet waiting for them near the Omega Station relays.

As the Hegemony’s fleets had been stopped well out of troop deployment range, Esan itself was left entirely untouched by the battle. Escape pods were recovered by the Republics and League forces and the batarians inside them, whether they were slavers or Hegemony forces, were imprisoned as criminals. Any slaves found were promptly freed and promised repatriation to their homeworlds. Upon the Second and Sixth Fleets return to the Asari Republics, most of their prisoners were executed as slavers, while the remainder, mostly lower caste batarians were imprisoned. The Hegemony Ambassador lodged a formal protest with the Citadel Council over the destruction of the Hegemony’s fleet as well as the execution and imprisonment of its military personnel only to withdraw it upon the Asari Republics inquiring if the Hegemony was making a formal declaration of war or if what had happened over Esan had simply been the actions of one rogue fleet commander.

After one month passed, the secondary provisions of Esan’s agreement to formally join the Asari Republics came into force, and as the agreement was not endorsed by a three-fourths majority of Esan’s citizens it was dissolved, allowing them to become an independent colony once again. Approximately seventy years later Warlord Aria T’Loak reached an agreement with Esan and peacefully annexed it into her newly formed territory.

  
SA Addendum: This was actually a big one, two, three and you’re out bout with the Hegemony. One, showing them they could not attack the League of the Terminus without also engaging the Republics even though the two governments do not have an official alliance; two, displaying the willingness of the Asari Republics to go to war with the Hegemony over their actions - a war the Hegemony has no chance of winning; and three, utterly destroying the Hegemony's most advanced fleet, the Second Fleet, leaving the Hegemony severely weakened. Both the League and Republics followed this engagement up with economic sanctions against the Hegemony and batarian Warlords, acting as one block in this action. Besides these economic sanctions, the individual Warlords of the League increased their raiding activity against various batarian Warlords who had sent forces to Esan, taking several systems from them and in total increasing the combined territory the League holds in the Terminus systems by approximately another quarter. Intelligence also believes that following the Hegemony’s attempt to take Esan, RIS provided monetary backing and intelligence to Aria T’Loak. Covertly supporting her bid to take over Omega Station from Warlord Galvok in an effort to ensure the entire region fell under Asari/League control once again and became stabilized enough that the Hegemony would not make a second attempt to claim the area.

  
**Biology**

**Empathy and Caste**

Every known intelligent species is a social species, meaning that they live in groups and have some type of group hierarchy in order to maintain those groups. Every known social intelligent species also is capable of feeling empathy for others, this extends even to those species with extremely strong dominance drives like the Yagh and Batarians.

One may argue that the Batarians do not seem to have any empathy, or if they are capable of feeling such it is only towards their own species. This is not true, as those in the Terminus Systems will tell you about the batarian they knew who was a kind person and did not mistreat anyone. Yet everyone also knows that you do not want to suffer the fate of becoming a batarian slave.

At one point in their history I'm sure the biological traits that predisposed a batarian to high levels of empathy were more equally spread throughout the population, however given their strong dominance drive and rigid caste structure over time those with such characteristics ended up in lower and lower castes. As cunning, ruthlessness and strength became to be the sole valued characteristics among those who were born as high-caste; any child born as a high-caste with more empathetic traits found themselves quickly challenged and either killed or allowed to live, but now as a servant to the one who defeated them. Eventually these values migrated down to the mid-caste as well, and over time Batarian culture came to value empathy only in any lower caste assigned to care for their children.

As each caste typically married only within itself, the Batarians over the course of thousands of years have effectively managed to breed empathy out of their race except for lower caste batarians. Typically, only the mid or lower caste batarians will leave Hegemony space, which explains why you are more likely to encounter a batarian who is not what most species would consider a sociopath in the Terminus systems and even there they are not in the majority.

  
**Government**

**Caste and Slavery**

Only high-caste, and mid-caste Batarians are allowed to own slaves; and members of these castes are known for their very high dominance drives as well as for their ruthlessness. A high-caste or mid-caste batarian will not allow any hint of rebelliousness or disobedience in their slaves to go by unpunished, both because it would make them seem weak in the eyes of their peers and because their own high dominance drive will not let them accept anything less than complete submission in those who are supposed to be far beneath them in the social order. It is not at all uncommon for rebellious newly bought slaves to find themselves locked in a dominance battle with their new owner that goes on literally for days as the batarian utilizes any means possible to break them including physical punishment, use of sleep deprivation, psychological tactics and chemical methods such as the use of drugs. Such a dominance battle once entered has only two possible outcomes - either the slave submits completely or the batarian will eventually kill them.

Batarians break their slaves, mentally and emotionally until the slave fits the idea of the Batarian belief system about slaves - that they are animals which happen to be able to speak, that they need Batarian Masters to direct them, and that they are only fit to be used for the benefit of their Master.

**Batarian Conditioning of Human Slaves**

Initially the Batarians treated human slaves just like any of the other races, employing their standard practices to break and mold them into proper slaves. However, the influx of human slaves from Mindoir and Elysium resulted in some unexpected failures of the Batarian’s standard conditioning procedures. There were cases where supposedly properly conditioned human slaves caused extensive industrial sabotage which resulted in extensive property loss for their Masters, and more shockingly where human slaves turned on their Masters and their families and attacked them. More commonly, human slaves successfully killed themselves thus depriving their rightful masters of their productivity; or simply became non-responsive and unable to take even basic care of themselves until they died of starvation. As a result of these conditioning failures, the Hegemony quickly developed a hybrid conditioning method that combined the use of chemical conditioning with the use of control chips. Now Batarians process human slaves by first injecting them with a chemical mix which essentially lobotomizes them and then implant a control chip to render the human slave perfectly docile and obedient to their Batarian masters, thus ensuring that the previous conditioning failures will not be repeated.

  
**Terminus System Batarians**

Three types of batarians are found outside of Hegemony space within the Terminus Systems. Batarians who were born there and who may or may not agree with the Hegemonies propaganda, batarians who have rejected their cultures and have successfully managed to escape the Hegemony, and Hegemony supported batarian slavers.


	7. Codex Changes for Humanity and the Systems Alliance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interestingly enough, no where that I can find does canon discuss the reactions on Earth to what was going on at Shanxi - given the way media seems to compete with one another in stirring things up I can only imagine the mainstream coverage, then there’s what the extremes at either end were likely saying. In short, I can only imagine that things ranged from outright hysteria, to lets draft everyone into the military, to blow up the relays so they can’t get here etc etc. I’m certain that calm, rational voices, as they are today, would be in the minority. All of that fear mongering and hate wouldn’t just go away when the Council forced the armistice, and certainly not when everyone learned the Turians outnumbered Humanity by around fifty to one. Also, just like after everyone watched the towers fall on Sept 11th on TV and there was a upswing in PTSD like symptoms among the general population, there would likely be the same thing after the First Contact War.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: With few exceptions I should only be covering differences between my universe and canon here so if you don’t see something mentioned assume it’s unchanged from the canon codex entry.
> 
> https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-By-the-Numbers

Humanity and the Systems Alliance were introduced to the larger galaxy in the Relay 314 Incident or First Contact War as the humans term nearly 10,000 years after the founding of the Council. Their homeworld Earth, is somewhat of an atypical garden world. Though well positioned in the habitat zone and with nearly 70% water coverage, the planet has undergone 26 extinction events, 6 of which were major extinction events. This gives Humanity the dubious distinction of surpassing the Krogan in number of extinction events survived, as Tuchanka has had 19 extinction events of which 4 were major. Several times primitive humans have almost been wiped out, most notably during the eruption of a super volcano on Earth 70,000 years ago which resulted in a volcanic that reduced Earths primitive hominid population to around a mere 2000 individuals. These extinction events have predictably had a profound impact on the planet’s species, and resulted in a unique genetic characteristic of several Earth species termed epigenetics.

 

The following is taken from “ A Presentation on Human-Turian Relations,” by Professor Lesorm Jihei, Institute of Political Studies, Sur’Kesh

“The Hierarchy’s actions, both in their enforcement of the ban on activating Relays and their use of hastatim squads on Shanxi, have had unfortunate and lasting consequences concerning their relations with the Systems Alliance and Humanity in general. As the turian patrol fleet that attacked the human expedition ships made no effort to reply to their first contact package before firing at them, to the Humans they had made every effort during their first encounter with another alien race to establish friendly relations. They sent a well prepared first contact package and even deliberately adopted a non-confrontational stance by not activating any weapon systems only to have their attempts met with violence and the almost complete destruction of their ships and the personnel on them.

At this point, let me make it clear that the turian patrol did not follow either the standard procedure for dealing with the possible activation of a relay, or the standard procedure for dealing with a first contact situation. Citadel rules of engagement in such cases are clear, a patrol fleet may only engage if the activation of a relay is an immanent possibility. As the human expeditionary fleet had broken off their activities to engage in first contact protocols with the patrol fleet this was clearly no longer the case. Patrol fleets may engage to defend themselves against an attack or if they suspect an immanent attack in all situations, but again the humans were clearly engaged in friendly first contact overtures and had made no aggressive actions toward them. These were some of the primary reasons why the Hierarchy was sanctioned so heavily for their engaging in hostilities with the Human Systems Alliance and forced to take the unusual step of publicly acknowledging that they should have never attacked the human fleet at all, much less escalated the situation into the invasion of a human colony world.

On the Human home-world, Earth, Humanity reacted with great alarm upon learning that first contact had been made with an alien race, but that the aliens had reacted to their peaceful contact attempt by attacking the entire expeditionary fleet without even making any attempt at return communications and destroying all but one civilian ship which managed to flee while their military escort sacrificed themselves to cover their retreat. News of the subsequent invasion of Shanxi seemed to only confirm Humanities worse fears - that the only other intelligent life they had encountered seemed to be innately hostile. Speculation grew that the aliens attack on Shanxi was only the first step in a war of total conquest and either the enslavement of their race or outright genocide. Then reports from the scouting forces sent ahead of Earth’s Second Fleet came back and seemed to confirm that Humanities worse case fear was an accurate one. The aliens, who the Humans now knew were named Turians, had already enslaved the civilian population of Shanxi. Upon defeating the colonies military forces the Turians had forced the civilian population from their homes, executing any who resisted, even children, and forcing the few left, mostly the elderly, and mothers with children into concentration camps where they were now awaiting processing or execution.

To us, familiar with the Hierarchy and their ways, our first question is why did the civilian population resist to such an extent? Though general opinion may disapprove of the Turians using hastatim squads to pacify non-Turian worlds, it is well known that once the civilian populace is within the borders of the safe camps they are well-treated. This is well known to us, however all of the information the Humans had on Turians and the Turian Hierarchy came from the invading Turian military, and after the attack on their expeditionary fleet and colony world the Humans were not willing to believe the Turians. Again, we know that Turians do not lie, but the Humans did not, and certainly did not accept the Turians assurances that they did not lie.

You may be starting to wonder why this level of disbelief, why was the Humans resistance to the Turian occupation so violent and intransigent? To understand why you have to know something of Human history. Three hundred years prior on Earth there was a worldwide conflict between two alliances, named the Rome-Berlin-Toyko-Axis and the Allied Powers of World War II. One of the member states of the Axis, the German Reich, headquartered in Berlin, first segregated members of particular ethnic groups into particular living areas, and then eventually into work camps. Voluntary cooperation was at first encouraged, the camps were for their own safety, they would be well cared for there if they cooperated and went willingly. Those that didn’t would be deemed dangerous and in opposition to the government, and would be executed. I’m sure you are seeing a similarity in the message used by this German Reich and the Turian hastitim squads already, replace safe camp with work camp and government with occupation force and essentially you have the same communication.

As you may already have guessed the German Reich work camps bore little resemblance to Turian safe camps. German Reich work camps are more modernly referred to in Human literature as extermination by work camps or just extermination camps. These work camps were German Reich’s ‘final solution’ to the existence of these unwanted populations, places where members of such groups were employed as forced labor under starvation food conditions until they died through malnutrition or disease, or were simply killed outright. You may question, did the Humans on Shanxi actually make this connection, did they believe that the Turian safe camps were actually extermination camps? Turian hastatim members upon Shanxi reported being frequently referred to as Nazi’s before being fired upon by resisting civilians. The Nazi party was the political party of the German Reich, and came to be the popular term for any member of the German Reich government or military, thus it is clear that the Humans on Shanxi had definitely made this connection and had decided that the Turians meant to kill them, either though forced labor or more directly by executing them once they had voluntary disarmed themselves.

Understood in this context it becomes apparent why the Human civilians on Shanxi chose not to cooperate with the Turian hastitim squads, but opposed them by whatever means necessary. To the Humans they were facing execution no matter what choice they made, at least by fighting they had a chance for survival for themselves and their families. With this knowledge of their history, and the unwitting similarity between the message the Turian hastitim officers made to the Human civilians with the historical messages of the Germain Reich, or Nazi’s, it becomes apparent why the Human’s interpreted the Turian’s intentions in such a manner, and why their resistance to the Turian hastitim squads was so determined and widespread even though they had to understand that there was no reasonable possibility of victory. Today the actions of the hastitim squads on Shanxi are known in the Systems Alliance as the Shanxi Massacre, where approximately 60% of the civilian populace was killed during their resistance to the Turian’s pacification efforts on that Human colony world.

On Earth, the existence of the safe camps, the actions of the hastatim squads and the execution of over half the civilian populace of the colony confirmed in many Humans minds that the Turians were akin to the Nazi of the German Reich and that Humanity was engaged in a war against a genocidal enemy which meant to completely destroy them. Human news broadcasts on Earth at this time show scenes of chaos, with massive demonstrations, scenes of rioting and an increasing amount of discourse portraying turians in what we now know were deliberate attempts to equate them with the German Reich’s Nazi political party and military. Images of turians at these demonstrations portrayed them with teeth bared in various menacing postures, even sometimes with red human blood dripping from their mandibles and hands apparently implying turian troops were literally tearing apart humans with their bare hands and teeth. One memorable poster showed a turian trooper standing with one foot on top of a dead human infant whom he had apparently just killed judging from the blood underneath the child. These posters were even done in the same style as historic Nazi propaganda posters, giving clear visual cues that Turians would commit all of the atrocities that had committed by the Germain Reich’s Nazis, and that Humanity should not just fear, but be terrified of the consequences of a Hierarchy victory.

While the Systems Alliance represents Earth to the Citadel Council, it is supported by several nation states on Earth. During this time these nation states had already begin to call in all military reserves and were even in the process of recalling able bodied retired military members. The political process in several nations had begun to allow the involuntary enlistment of their civilians. The nuclear arsenals of the various nation states who possessed them, numbering several thousand ballistic nuclear missiles, was being inspected should they be needed as a measure of last resort to prevent Turian occupation. Scientific discussions were occurring discussing the possibility of disabling or destroying the mass relays leading into Human occupied space.

Should the Turians have invaded Earth it is entirely possible the Humans would have used those nuclear weapons on their own homeworld - recall that the Humans believed the Turians goal to be enslavement and eventual genocide so this was not seen as an unreasonable measure.

Current day relations between the Systems Alliance and the Hierarchy remain extremely poor. Human media often portrays the Hierarchy as a government that far from being honorable, is one that hides their true intentions of galactic domination behind an facade of honor while brainwashing its Turian citizens to unquestionably obey orders in preparation for the day that the Hierarchy is prepared to begin their attempt to conquer the rest of the galaxy - just like the Human German Reich Nazi’s. Unsurprisingly, the Hierarchy government is highly offended by these portrayals, as are its citizens.  
  
If you question this, then consider the incidences of demonstrations upon the Citadel where the slur Nazi has been directed at the turian guards outside the Turian Embassy. On Earth, before the new followers of neo-Nazism were largely absorbed by various Earth First political parties, counter demonstrators frequently carried signs telling them to emigrate to the Hierarchy where they would feel at home.

The reality is that while Turians see themselves as honorable defenders of the galactic peace, most Humans see Turians as dangerous militaristic fanatics bent on galactic domination.”

 

**Human Biology**

**Epigenetics**

Humanities biological distinctiveness is due to a trait known as epigenetics; inheritable changes to genetic expression which allow Humans (and all Earth species) the ability to ‘fake’ genetic variance and appear to adapt far more quickly than straightforward genetics would normally allow. An epigenetically inherited element can an act as a "stop-gap", good enough for short-term adaptation that allows the organism to survive for long enough for mutation and/or recombination to genetically assimilate the adaptive phenotypic change. Essentially Earth organisms have discovered a way to ‘jury-rig evolution,’ a critical adaptation to a planet with frequent extinction events (this last sentence is for the purpose’s of this story - though it may actually be true as well).

**Epigenetics and Biotics**

Of all the races, only the Asari, evolving as they did on an eezo rich planet, are innate biotics. All other races possess very few individuals with the appropriate mutation such that when exposed to eezo they will not die but survive. If the individual in question is female and pregnant, then provided they have passed their helpful mutation onto to their child then the child will be born as a biotic. Statistically the probability that an individual with such a mutation, who also happens to be female and pregnant, and has passed her mutation onto her child, and is exposed to a non lethal dose of eezo - is extremely low. Typically the rate of accidental non-lethal eezo exposures of pregnant females have only produced a biotic rate of around 2.5% making biotic individuals extremely rare in all species other than the Asari.

Humanity on the other hand displays a unprecedented rate of nearly 25% successful biotic births, ten times that of all other non-innately bioitic species. This indicates that Humanity is the only currently known race which would adapt to widespread eezo exposure in the same manner as which the Asari managed to adapt, by having enough individuals with the desirable mutation to successfully bring to term a sufficient number of viable offspring to ensure the continuation of the species. Earth has no natural eezo deposits, therefore they should not possess a higher rate of such a helpful mutation than any of the other races whose homeworlds also do not possess eezo deposits. Yet the disparity exists, and the most accepted reason for this is Human epigentics.

**Human Nervous System and Emotion**

“Crush”, Broken heart”, “Ripped my heart out”, “Sucked the breath from my lungs”, “Stunning numbness”, “A knife in the back, bringing me to my knees” “words, sharp and slicing” - the many metaphors humans use to describe their emotions, sometimes violent, often visceral, clearly indicate that Humans experience emotional pain very similarly to how they experience physical pain.

That is because they do, the same area of the Human brain which processes physical pain also processes emotional pain, the anterior cingulate cortex. Only one other known species has this same biological characteristic, the Krogan, and this is one of the causes behind their blood-rage. However, Humans are much more empathetic and socially group oriented than Krogan. In Krogan this biological characteristic, along with their redundant systems, allows them to ignore pain and continue fighting against what is attacking them. In Humans, by contrast, this biological characteristic serves to support the social attachment system; linking emotional distress, which is normally relationship based, to physical pain in order to encourage humans to stay connected to close others and preserve their place within their group as lone humans historically had very poor survival rates in the pre-modern age.

In light of this, it is intriguing to note that the two species whose homeworlds have undergone the highest number of major and minor extinction events both possess this similar physical characteristic - and yet this characteristic expresses itself between the two species in so very different ways. - Doctor Anea Vare, Ulee Republic Medical Council

**Human Fear Response**

Humans have two separate biological fear response mechanisms: One which evolved during Earths Cretaceous Period during which mammals were small arboreal tree dwellers and the dominant species were very large reptiles often weighing several tons, and the second which evolved later during the time when mammals had replaced the reptiles as the dominant species. When a fear-provoking stimulus is detected in the distance, the second, later developed fear response mechanism analyzes the threat level and ways to avoid it. If the fear-provoking stimulus is detected close to the human, the more primitive and reactive fear response mechanism activates and the human will do one of three things: fight, flee or freeze.

The evolutionary older, more reactive, fear response mechanism is physically located in the periaqueductal gray (PAG) area of the Human brain which is located near the brain stem. The PAG also triggers the release of opioid analgesia, the human body's internal painkiller. The more recently developed fear response mechanism, capable of more sophisticated decision making is located in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), a section of the cortex located just behind the humans eyebrows.

It is believed that Human abnormalities in these biological fear response mechanisms may lead to anxiety and panic disorders. Overactive PAGs, the more primitive fear response to close threats, and underactive vmPFCS, the fear response to distant threats, may play a role in panic disorders. The reverse, hyper vmPFCS responses and deficient PAG responses, may play a role in anxiety disorders.

Addendum: Interestingly Humans react very similarly to Salarians when it comes to close contact fear stimuli: a very fast, nearly instantaneous reaction that has little reasoning behind it, but has evolved as it has because the ancestors of both species were under constant threat of predation by large, quick predator species. Both species are also the only species who react to close contact fear stimuli by screaming - which can cause a predator to hesitate for a critical moment, and is an auditory trigger for a fear response and heightened environmental awareness in nearby members of their species.

**Mental Illness**

Mental illnesses and mental health issues are not usually mentioned in species codex’s as the incident rate among known species is usually low, around five percent. However, the rate of mental illness in humans is unusually high; averaging around twenty-five percent, with five percent of those experiencing severe enough symptoms that they are considered debilitating. Such a high rate of mental illness is believed to be related to the human race’s unusual genetics, and the fact that emotional pain is processed in the same manner as physical pain.

Approximately 1 in 5 adult humans, or 18.5% — experiences mental illness in a given year.

Approximately 1 in 25 adult humans, or 4.0% — experiences a serious mental illness in a given year that substantially interferes with or limits one or more major life activities.

18.1% of adult humans have experienced an anxiety disorder such as post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or a specific phobia.

Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death for humans aged 15–24.

Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death for young humans aged 10–14.

Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death among humans of all ages.

More than 90% of human children who die by suicide have a mental health condition.

 

Directive to Citadel Security from Dr. Tavera Saro, Director Hurta Medical Center - endorsed by Citadel Council

Executor, instructional videos meant for human first responders to train them how to recognize signs of mental illness and appropriately respond to them have been forward to you, please review them and have your training staff develop an appropriate video for training use by Citadel Security within the next 30 days. The major difference that should be implemented is that if the human in question presents no immediate threat to themselves or others, that Citadel Security immediately withdraw to an observation distance, and summon a medical first responder team. Mental Illness in humans is more of a medical issue than a security one, and subjecting them to more mental stress by forcefully subduing and then incarcerating them is extremely inappropriate to the situation.

 

 **Human Culture**  
  
**End Days, Last Days, Eeschaton**  
  
Pervasive among the various Human cultures and mythologies is the belief that in some future time-period world events will achieve a final climax.  In Earth’s linear cosmology systems, these end-time scenarios are characterized by themes of transformation and redemption, while in cyclical cosomology systems such end-time scenarios are characterized by themes of decay, redemption and rebirth.  
  
It is not surprising that in species which has survived so many extinction level events that there should not only be echoes in their mythology of past such occurrences, but the existential fear that in the future they will eventually not survive one.  In fact, I would be more surprised if their mythology did not include such myths given Earth’s history - Dr. Surtin Pemore, Xenocultural Studies Institute, Sur’Kesh

 

 **Systems Alliance Economy**  
  
**Galactic Economy**  
  
In a Galactic economy dominated by well entrenched business interests, humanity initially struggled to achieve any reasonable level of market share.  Fortunately, as for most newly introduced species, entertainment products like literature, video productions and games were popular as well as novelty items such as high end exportable foods and beverages.  Once a selection of such products from Earth reached the galactic markets it did not take long at all for select import distributors to recognize the unusual variety and quality of alcoholic beverages produced both on Earth and on several Systems Alliance colonies.  While Humanity now exports a wide variety of goods on the galactic markets, alcoholic beverages remain one of their most popular exports with several brands achieving galaxy wide name recognition.  
  
Galactic Trivia: When you compare the number of distinct varieties of alcoholic beverages produced per each race’s home world, Humans produce a wider variety of such beverages than any other race.  In fact, they hold the distinction of having successfully produced fermented beverages from every native plant on their planet which is capable of being fermented.

 

**Human Military**

Active duty human military forces, prior to the Relay 314 Conflict or First Contact War comprised about 3% of the adult human population. An interesting fact given the claims of the Turian Hierarchy of the Humans innately violent and war-like nature. Contrary to that assertion, the percentage of humans serving in their active duty military forces pre-first contact is the lowest of all known races other than the Volus and Hanar and approximately equal to that of the Elcor. Since their violent first contact with the Hierarchy however, the Human government has apportioned more of their GDP to their military forces, raising the percentage of adults serving in their active duty form three percent to nine percent. Historically, such numbers of active serving adult humans has not been recorded since the Humans last global conflict, World War II which occurred two hundred and twenty years ago.

**Penal Military Service**

Humans have rarely offered those incarcerated for minor offenses the opportunity of serving out their sentences by serving in their species armed forces. The practice was resurrected following the Relay 314 Conflict, and those serving lesser offenses are now offered the opportunity of serving in the Disciplinary Companies under control of the Systems Alliance Military Police. These Disciplinary Companies often serve in anti-piracy and anti-slavery actions within the Terminus Systems.


	8. Codex Changes for Quarian’s and the Migrant Fleet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In regards to this section, I remember another author mentioning this issue and thinking - how could I forget basic biology? Their right, foreign microbes would probably go ‘wooohoo all this unoccupied space to grow in lets invade,’ in regards to Rannoch and it’s flora and fauna. Now, however, I can’t remember who or what piece of fiction…if anyone recalls it please let me know so I can credit them for the idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: With few exceptions I should only be covering differences between my universe and canon here so if you don’t see something mentioned assume it’s unchanged from the canon codex entry.

**Quarian Biology**  
  
Quarian immune systems have always been relatively weak, as pathogenic microbes were comparatively rare in their homeworld's biosphere. Furthermore, what few viruses and other microbes were native to their homeworld were often at least partly beneficial to them, giving them a symbiotic relationship with their environment. Due to this fact, Rannoch’s ecosystem is unique in it’s vulnerability to offworld microbes which have the potential of devastating the entire ecosystem if accidentally introduced into it.  
  
This had interesting implications once the quarians developed spaceflight and began colonizing other worlds. Either the quarian colonists could acclimate to their new colonies and never visit their homeworld again without wearing a protective environmental suit, or they had to live in an environmental suit their entire lives on their new colony world. Alien visitors from off-world could also not visit Rannoch without wearing protective gear due to the natural microbes within their bodies. This is one of the reasons behind the quarian development of the geth. The geth were not organic, and could be safely sterilized and moved between colonies and homeworld without fear of them providing a vector for invasive microbe species.  
  
This issue also has interesting implications for the Migrant Fleet and settling on a new homeworld. Unlike any other species, the quarians are faced by the choice of adapting to any new homeworld and forever giving up the dream of walking bare skinned on their birth world or remaining in their environmental suits and never truly accepting any new world as their own.  
  
**Quarian History**  
  
Immediately following their retreat from Rannoch and their colony worlds the quarians attempted to claim Ekuna, a high gravity (4.1g) levo world that had been given by the Council to the Elcor as they were the only species capable of actually colonizing it instead of living in orbital stations and only working on the surface in exo-suits suitable for high-gravity work. A fleet was dispatched to reclaim the world as it was obvious that the quarian refugees were not actually planning on settling the world, but strip mining it for its rich mineral resources to repair and rebuild their ships in preparation for another attack on the geth.  
  
The turian fleet forced Quarian representatives to appear before the Council. The Quarian’s had already been stripped of their embassy as punishment for their carelessness in developing an AI, now, in return for not being driven out of the relative safety of Citadel space into the Terminus Systems, they were forced to sign a treaty agreeing they would settle no world within Citadel controlled space without the permission of the Council and would not make any further attempts to attack the Geth.  
  
Since this time the Council has relented somewhat in their hardline stance, and offered to assist the Quarians in finding a new homeworld. Speculation claims the Council is primarily driven by the fact that Quarians would use less resources of they lived on a planet than wandering in the Migrant Fleet. However, this offer comes with the provision that the Migrant Fleet will disband, and the future size of any Quarian fleet will be strictly limited, and its size and composition monitored, to ensure that the Quarians do not use their new world simply to build up the resources needed to attack the Geth and re-take Rannoch. The Quarians, not yet willing to give up all hope of reclaiming their homeworld, have up until now respectfully declined the Council’s offer.


	9. Codex Changes for the Protheans and the Prothean Empire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: With few exceptions I should only be covering differences between my universe and canon here so if you don’t see something mentioned assume it’s unchanged from the canon codex entry.

Place holder text


	10. Codex Changes for Illium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Illium was…you know I don’t know what it was besides maybe schizophrenic..this is my attempt at making it coherently logical. As a side effect of making it logical it really changes up the missions on Illium.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: With few exceptions I should only be covering differences between my universe and canon here so if you don’t see something mentioned assume it’s unchanged from the canon codex entry.

Place Holder

 

Terminus Gateway  
  
  
Monitored Planet  
  
  
Taxes and Tax Evasion  
  
  
Indentured Servitude


	11. Codex Changes for Omega Station

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matching changes for Omega...Illium with combat boots...Warlord T'Loak, and the League of the Terminus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: With few exceptions I should only be covering differences between my universe and canon here so if you don’t see something mentioned assume it’s unchanged from the canon codex entry.

Place holder text

Terminus Trading Hub

 

Monitored Station

 

Levies and Taxes

 

Indentured Servitude


	12. Codex Changes for Non-Council Space - Attican Traverse, Skyllian Verge and Terminus Systems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’d like to note Katkiller-V’s Another Realm series as providing inspiration for my re-visioning of the Terminus Systems as well as letting me use his divisions of the Terminus Systems. There are fairly major differences, but the basic idea of the Terminus Systems being divided up among various Warlords who control entire sectors, including the planets etc within them comes from that series. It was something that we didn’t really see in the Mass Effect games, which is unfortunate since it would have given some much needed legitimacy to the canon Council's constant fears of uniting the Terminus against them. In this AU, while a united Terminus is concern for the Council, a more legitimate concern is the constant and ongoing threat of piracy and raiding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: With few exceptions I should only be covering differences between my universe and canon here so if you don’t see something mentioned assume it’s unchanged from the canon codex entry.

**Reference Picture** :[ DWebArt’s Galaxy Map 3.5](https://orig00.deviantart.net/3e59/f/2012/257/8/5/mass_effect_galaxy_map_3_5_by_dwebart-d5eqdpc.png) found on DeviantArt with the following caveats: 1. The space controlled by the Systems Alliance in my AU would only contain the Local Cluster, the Arcturus Stream, and the Exodus Cluster. 2. Remember the Skyllian Verge? I do, and amazingly enough the SA does not get to claim all of that space in just 3 years. The Skyllian Verge is comprised of Artemis Tau, Hades Gamma, and the Petra Nebula. Everything else he has marked as Systems Alliance space would be considered Attican Traverse space. 2. Terminus Systems space would be extended all the way to the core near Omega Station. 3. The following systems would shift from Attican Traverse Space to Terminus Systems space: Eagle Nebula, Pylos Nebula, Pangaea Expanse (Ilos), and Hawking Eta.

  
**Skyllian Verge**

The Skyllian Verge is a large, relatively undeveloped area of space along the borders of the Systems Alliance and the Batarian Hegemony. There is intense competition between both governments to colonize, develop and exploit this area. While this competition has yet to escalate to outright war, there have been a number of minor conflicts in the Verge. The Systems Alliance military regularly patrols the areas around their colonies as well as their regular shipping lanes, however they do not have enough ships to expand their patrols much beyond these areas. Thus the Verge remains a largely lawless outside of the Alliance colonies, with pirates, slavers, and mercenary groups operating freely within it. Because of this pirate and slaving raids remain a very real concern for the Systems Alliance colonies within the area and merchant ships frequently convoy with Alliance patrols to deter attacks.

The Batarian Hegemony believes the Verge to be rightfully theirs and opposes the Alliance being allowed to colonize planets within it. These tensions led to the Skyllian Blitz and later to the Hegemony withdrawing their membership in the Citadel Council.

 

**Attican Traverse and Terminus Systems**

The combined population of the Attican Traverse and Terminus Systems is estimated to be around one trillion sentient beings, of this number approximately 250 billion are Batarian’s most of which live in the Batarian Hegemony. Of the approximately 750 billion individuals remaining, around half, or approximately 375 billion, of the number are Asari; as they have been settling the Attican Traverse and Terminus area for approximately the last 25,000 years. The remainder of the Attican Traverse and Terminus Systems population is comprised of Vorcha, Turians, Salarians, Volus, Krogan, Humans, Hanar, Quarians, Elcor and Drell plus assorted other species relatively unknown to Citadel Space, some of whom whose homeworlds and populations have been almost entirely absorbed into the Hegemony and serve as slave races.

The area of space encompassed by the Attican Traverse and Terminus Systems varies depending on who is the one asking and who they chose to ask. Generally speaking the Terminus Systems encompasses all of the remainder of the Milky Way Galaxy which is not contained within Citadel Space, the border area of the Attican Traverse, and Geth Controlled Space. Volume wise, Citadel Space encompasses the largest area, followed closely by the Terminus Systems, then the Attican Traverse and Geth Controlled Space.

In a very real sense, the term Attican Traverse simply means the area of space defined by the Citadel as buffering it’s borders with the Terminus Systems and the Terminus Systems may or may not agree with where the Citadel Council draws this border. Another definition of the Attican Traverse, or at least the Anti-Spinward Attican Traverse, is that it was the area of space that the Batarian Hegemony planned on expanding into along with the Skyllian Verge and claimed as their ‘area of interest’ when they were members of Citadel Space. There is a high chance that the Attican Traverse and Terminus Systems contain a larger number of opened relays than Citadel space as there is very little oversight of much of space encompassed by the area.

The Attican Traverse and Terminus Systems can be divided into six areas for convenience of understanding.

The Coreward Terminus - The inner central area of the Terminus Systems extending from the Galactic core to the immediate area around Omega Station.  
The Edgeward Terminus - The outer central area of the Terminus Systems extending from the Galactic outer rim to just above Omega Station.  
The Spinward Terminus - The area of the Terminus Systems between the Coreward and Edgeward Terminus and Illium and extending past Illium into the spinward portion of the Attican Traverse.  
The Anti-Spinward Terminus - The area of the Terminus Systems between the Coreward and Edgeward Terminus and the Perseus Veil and extending into the anti-spinward portion Attican Traverse.  
The Spinward Attican Traverse - The area of the Attican Traverse extending from Illium and the Spinward Terminus to Outer Citadel Space.  
The Anti-Spinward Attican Traverse - The area of the Attican Traverse extending between Geth Controlled Space and the Anti-Spinward Terminus to Systems Alliance Space and Inner Council Space.

There are three major factions in the Terminus Systems and Attican Traverse; the Hegemony and its allied batarian Warlords; the League of the Terminus comprised of the various asari Warlords and their loose alliance with the Asari Republics; and the small section of Terminus and Traverse space controlled by turian Warlords which often allies itself with the League of the Terminus. Outside of these three major factions there is a large portion of the Traverse and Terminus Systems that owes allegiance to none of these groups. This is the classic lawless Terminus inhabited by League exiles, criminals on the run from Citadel space, independent Warlords, mercenary groups of indeterminate morals, criminal gangs and the occasional independent colony.

 

**Batarian Warlords (Primarily Hegemony Aligned)**

The Batarian Warlords in the Terminus Systems and Attican Traverse are in a near constant state of semi-war with all of the other Terminus factions and with the Systems Alliance. They are the source of a significant portion of the piracy and slaving attacks with the Terminus, the Attican Traverse, Systems Alliance claimed space, and make sporadic forays into Citadel Space. Their primary territory extends from the edges of the Batarian Hegemony into the Anti-Spinward Attican Traverse and into the Anti-Spinward Terminus Systems. Their claim of this space is contested by various independent warlords, the Human Systems Alliance, and the League of the Terminus who annexed almost a quarter of their previously held territory after the Humiliation at Esan (see Batarian Codex entry).

Most of the Batarian Warlords are directly supported to some degree by the Hegemony, even though the Hegemonies official position is to categorically deny that they provide these Warlords funding or supplies. The reality is that the Hegemony supplies these Warlords with surplus military goods, and serves as their primary market for goods both legitimate and stolen as well as being the primary place to which they sell their sentient chattel. Without the Hegemony’s support, the Batarian Warlords would quickly find themselves surrounded on all sides by determined enemies and would cease to exist within a few decades.

 

**Turian Warlords (Primarily League Aligned)**

There are far fewer Turian Warlords in the Terminus Systems than there are Batarian or Asari Warlords, and most of them are allied with the League of the Terminus. Those that are League allied prohibit outright slavery while permitting indentured servitude and generally speaking support some type of meritocracy system of government. While the League aligned Turian Warlords are not overtly supported by the Hierarchy, there is a level of cooperation between them and the Hierarchy which extends to such matters such as the extradition of criminals, and the exchange of goods, especially military goods and foodstuffs. The territory held by the Turian Warlords is located primarily in the Anti-Spinward Attican Traverse area nearest the Galactic Core.

 

**Krogan Warlords (Blood Pack Aligned)**

The few krogan Warlords in the Terminus Systems could be considered to be tentatively allied with the Hegemony, but only because the Hegemony will trade with them and provides their primary buyer for any sentients the Warlords have enslaved in their piracy and raiding attacks. The krogan Warlords in the Terminus are usually allied with the Blood Pack under Warlord Ganar Wrang and many owe allegiance to him as Overlord. The territory held by the krogan Warlords centers around the Valhallan Threshold in the Spinward Terminus and their re-claimed world Garvug.

 

**Asari Warlords (Primarily League Aligned)**

 

  
**League of the Terminus**

The League of the Terminus is based upon its namesake, Thessia’s first global governmental organization, the League of Republics. Asari began setting the area now known as the Terminus Systems approximately 25,000 years ago during the primary expansion phase of the Republics. During that time Lineages with enough wealth and power sponsored and outfitted multiple colonization efforts as independent without significant governmental oversight. Many of these colonies were then peacefully re-subsumed into the Republics when the official borders expanded to include them. The core Terminus Systems asari colonies were founded in exactly the same manner, except that they were founded much farther away and were never reclaimed by the Asari Republics.

Over time, the Terminus Systems colonies became independent in truth, their allegiance belonging to the Terminus System branch of their Lineage, and the Warlord leading it, instead of to the founding Lineage’s Potenia upon Thessia. That does not mean however that there are not still close ties between the two Lineage branches and between what is now known as the League of the Terminus and the Asari Republics in general, as the Hegemony found out when they invaded Esan. Outside of the core Terminus Systems asari colony worlds, this generalization begins to break down as newer asari Warlords have risen to power independent of the older established asari Terminus Lineages. This does not mean however, that these Warlords do not also possess familial and/or political ties and have influence within the Republics.

 

(incomplete)

 

Common Citizenship Terms within the League  
  
Demios - Full citizen with all citizenship rights.  
Ten’nios - Have all citizenship rights except for voting or entering into contracts without approval of their guardians.  This is the citizenship rank given to children and those who cannot be trusted to manage themselves such as the mentally ill, developmentally disabled, or those otherwise rendered incapable of making responsible decisions for themselves such as repatriated human slaves who have been rendered permanently docile.  
Xe’nios - Temporary citizen, either by taking an oath to a Warlord, or by entering into a binding term contract with a full citizen.  
Dem’nios - Indentured Servants - retain basic citizenship rights.  
Hos’nios - Released Des’nois, they have regained their basic citizenship rights and some freedoms. Relatively rare as most Des’nois transition directly into Dem’nois or indentured servitude upon being paroled or freed as it is often a condition of their release.  
Des’nois - Prisoner - those imprisoned due to criminal activity or aggressive acts against a Warlord.  Severe crimes within the League are usually punished by either execution or exile, thus imprisonment as a punishment is usually meted out only for lesser crimes.

 

Human Colony Worlds

 

Contracted workers vs. Indentured servants vs. Freed slaves

 

Human freed slaves - special circumstances


	13. Codex Changes for the Eclipse Private Military Company

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lets just bullet-point this to make it short and sweet as this is a successful private military company:  
> *No random murdering  
> *No insane Jona Sederis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: With few exceptions I should only be covering differences between my universe and canon here so if you don’t see something mentioned assume it’s unchanged from the canon codex entry.

Place Holder Text


	14. Codex Changes for the Blue Suns Private Military Company

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: With few exceptions I should only be covering differences between my universe and canon here so if you don’t see something mentioned assume it’s unchanged from the canon codex entry.

Place Holder Text


	15. Codex Changes for the Treaty of Farixen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: With few exceptions I should only be covering differences between my universe and canon here so if you don’t see something mentioned assume it’s unchanged from the canon codex entry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Reference the canon Treaty of Farixen reads: The ratio of turian to Council to associate dreadnoughts is 5:3:1, which essentially means for every five dreadnoughts the turians construct, the asari and salarians are allowed three, and all other Citadel races one.

The Treaty of Farixen was authored at the Farixen Naval Conference where the Council races agreed to fix a ratio of dreadnought construction between themselves due to their destructive potential.  Signing the Treaty is a requirement for any race wishing to open an embassy on the Citadel.  The Krogan and Quarians comprise the only exceptions to the Treaty of Farixen in that they have a legal presence in Citadel Space, but are not allowed an embassy or to build dreadnoughts. The Krogan in addition are not allowed to build any heavy ships at all due to the events of the Krogan Rebellions.

The Treaty of Farixen permits any Citadel member race to build a minimum of five dreadnoughts. Beyond those minimums every Citadel member race is permitted to petition the Council for permission to build an additional dreadnought per every 20 garden worlds, or per every 100 outposts, belonging to them and for which they must provide protection. Special exceptions are also allowed by permission of the Citadel Council based on demonstrable need for additional dreadnoughts to provide a sufficient deterrence against piracy and raiding within a member race’s legally defined territory. The Systems Alliance used this special exception to obtain permission to build two additional dreadnoughts in addition to the five they were initially permitted due to the number of raids that were occurring within their territory.

In addition to the provisions above, member races of the Citadel Council are required to supply an additional fifteen dreadnoughts to meet with their required Citadel Space patrol and peacekeeping duties. The Turian Hierarchy is required to build no less than fifteen and currently no more than thirty additional dreadnoughts as the primary Citadel Space peacekeeping force.

Currently these are the number of dreadnoughts per Citadel Council member race:

Asari Republics: 45/45 plus 15/15 Peacekeeping

Turian Hierarchy: 20/20 plus 30/15 Peacekeeping

Salarian Union: 10/14 plus 15/15 Peacekeeping

Systems Alliance: 4/7 plus 4/15 Peacekeeping


	16. Words and their Meanings

**Asari Words and their Meanings**

Akero - One who leads.

Akertira - One who trusts or follows.  
Sexual - this refers to an asari (or any sentient) who is capable of trusting another/s enough to let them control a melding encounter (usually for pleasure). All partners in the meld contribute their own pleasure, magnifying the total group experience. Akertira are not only highly valued (and treasured) for their rare ability to magnify pleasure, but also for the ability of a rare few of them to bind together three or more individuals for the purposes of producing children with the best characteristics of all in the meld.

Araponia - Master sailors, navigators and ocean wayfinders.

Daumino - Ancient ocean going sailing vessels whose oversized sails were manipulated by a skilled Araponia to catch the slightest wind and send the ship surging forward across the waves.

Duero Flower - The flower of the duero plant is the same hue of blue as the Earth cornflower, and is a common skin hue among asari.

Gira - Baby asari.

Kowa - Asari below the age of majority (40).

Kunaja - the long ridge of flesh that runs from the vagina to the top of the outer lips of an asari. When the asari is aroused this becomes swollen up to four times its usual diameter, pushing apart the outer lips and produces lubrication.

Matere - Mother. The child bearing parent.

Meri - sweet tropical fruit with a taste similar to lychee and jackfruit, often made into a sweet sauce. This sauce is used in many popular Asari dishes and desserts.

Nais - pronounced Nah-ees. Asari over the age of majority (40) Plural - Naisa (Permission by MizDirected who came up with this so useful noun.)

Orgyia - a unit of measurement that is approximately six feet or two meters or the height of an average asari.

Pate - Donor parent of an asari.

Potinia/Potiniini - Grand Matriarchs of a Lineage or Tribal Area to which every other Asari in their Lineage and allied family groups look for guidance and leadership.

Saala - Formal greeting

Sasama - Hardwood deciduous tree that produces tennis ball stone fruit with a thick husk similar to walnut fruits. Like that fruit, the sasama fruit is prized for the nutmeat of the seed inside it once it is fully ripened. The taste is similar to Brazil nuts.

Tuweavin - a sweet, fragrant, pale red dessert wine from the marshland tuwean fruit. Best known vintages come from Cybean where they have cultivated large fields of the fruit for tens of thousands of years.  
Slang - When Humanity was introduced to the Asari, this word became a term for the act of melding with a submissive (Akertira) human and then guiding them into ‘sub’ space while sharing pleasure. The greater the trust the human has in the asari while being dominated in the meld the more intense the pleasure received from human’s mind. Some humans are even able to duplicate the Asari Akertira’s ability to meld together multiple minds for reproductive purposes.

Tasia - An ancient and most commonly taught martial art, every Asari youth has a grounding in this basic martial skill. Humans find it very similar to the Chinese martial art of Tai Chi.

 

**Prothean Words and their Meanings**

dolthond – head roots  
  
Edhel – Prothean (people)  
  
Edhil – Prothean (singular)  
  
Edhilr – Protheans (plural)  
  
Eldalie – Prothean language  
  
Tiva – moment or second  
  
Hanté- minute  
  
anar hathol – sun sword (warp broadsword)  
  
órë - aura


	17. Mass Effect Sr2 Redesigned by Yteci

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments on this drawing are at https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/comments/23m45w/i_redesigned_the_interior_of_the_sr2_to_fit/

**[Mass Effect Sr2 Redesigned by Yteci](https://yteci.deviantart.com/) **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ytecis comments on the drawing from reddit
> 
> Ytecis 3 years ago: "If you line the original Cic up the cockpit and airlock on the exterior of the ship, the main room of the cic is way too wide to fit in the ship. The same goes for the war room. The lift is also placed way too much towards the front, making it impossible to reach the shuttle bay.
> 
> What I did was stretch the cic slightly, narrow it down, add an extra part to the corridor (I thought it was a cool idea to add escape pods like the SR1), resize the war room and rotate it 45º so the holographic thingy fits.
> 
> I also had to place the lift alot further back so it can reach the shuttle bay at the bottom (I didn't want to place it too far away from the Cic because it seemed inefficient) but I couldn't place it far enough back and as a result had to make the shaft slanted, which took up much space so I had to adjust it for the rest of the decks.
> 
> After that it was just a case of narrowing down the rest of the decks as they were also too wide, adjust them for the new shaft. I also made some small adjustments to the side view to make it fit better, added som stairs where needed, shrinked the core a little, flipped the captain's cabin so it doesn't intersect with the main Cic.
> 
> There is still the problem with the lift being oddly placed, as the shuttle bay came out alot smaller than I wanted it to, but wadda ya gonna do right?"


	18. Sketch of Amanda Athene Shepard by LuckyFK

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sketch of Amanda Athene Shepard by LuckyFK strumming out some tunes.  
> If you like his work, the link below the picture will take you to where it resides on DeviantArt and you can make a comment on it.

**[Amanda Athene Shepard by LuckyFK ](https://luckyfk.deviantart.com/art/Commission-Amanda-Athene-Shepard-713971615) **


	19. Portrait of Amanda Athene Shepard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Portrait of Amanda Athene Shepard by LuckyFK  
> If you like his work, the link below the picture will take you to where it resides on DeviantArt and you can make a comment on it.

**[Amanda Athene Shepard by LuckyFK ](https://luckyfk.deviantart.com/art/Commission-Amanda-Athene-Shepard-2-713972036) **


	20. Sketches of Amanda Athene Shepard by LuckyFK

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sketches of Amanda Athene Shepard by LuckyFK  
> If you like his work, the link below the picture will send you to his page on DeviantArt where you can see more of it.

**[Amanda Athene Shepard by LuckyFK ](https://luckyfk.deviantart.com/) **


	21. Artwork - Queen Rendering Judgement (Warlord Aria T'Loak)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sketches of Warlord Aria T'Loak by LuckyFK  
> If you like his work, the link below the picture will send you to his page on DeviantArt where you can see more of it.

**[ Queen Rendering Judgement by LuckyFK ](https://luckyfk.deviantart.com/) **


	22. Updates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Updates Notices

Update Notices: This chapter will be deleted and then introduced as a new chapter (or even replaced by additional Codex entries as I need to do ones for Illium and the Eclipse) - this will trigger updates for those who have the work subscribed. Unfortunately what this also means is that any comments on this chapter will also be deleted.

10/4/2017: Asari Codex - Biotic section updated  
10/4/2017: Turian Codex added

10/04-07/2017 - Asari Codex modified, military added, government added, sa addendums added etc - really just scan it for changes

10/06/2017 - Intro tightened up, table modified

10/07/2017 - Human Codex added

10/10/2017 - modified Asari Codex added more info about lineages and modified pheromone entry

10/12/2017 - modified Human Codex to flesh out what happened on Shanxi and introduce the Shanxi Massacre

10/12/2017 - modified Asari Codex added cultural attitudes about bondings (canon never did make much sense to me)

10/13/2017 - modified Intro 1st line 4th paragraph, last line 6th paragraph - as I've begun the prelude and rewriting the first chapter of the old story I've come to realize how much the population increase will have on the story itself, which is alot quite frankly. Humans in the canon universe weren't noticeably outnumbered by the Batarians...however in this one they are outnumbered by 16 to 1 galaxy wide and that's probably tripled out in the Terminus systems as most humans are on Earth. I woudln't be surprised if Humans out in the Terminus are almost as rare as Quarians and sometimes its not a good idea to stand out that much esp when slavers are generally around and allies are fairly non-existent.

10/20/2017 Batarian Codex added

10/20/2017 Modified the Turian Client Race section

10/21/2017 Asari Codex/Culture/Xe'nios Contracts added

10/26/2017 Asari Codex/Government/Relations with Terminus Systems Asari Warlords

10/27/2017 Batarian Codex/Batarian History/Humiliation at Esan

10/29/2017 Ship Blueprints by Yteci

11/07/2017 New Artwork of Amanda Athene Shepard by LuckyFK

11/23/2017 Added Codex for the Treaty of Farixen

12/14/2017 New Artwork of Warlord Aria T'Loak by LuckyFK


End file.
